You Never Forget Your First - Autorotation 

Practicing an engine failure emergency landing, known as auto-rotations. When the engine suddenly stops during flight, the helicopter will briefly feel like its falling out of the sky, and given the decent rate, it sort of is. Not to worry, losing the vertical altitude forces air into the main rotors blades and acts like a child blowing on a pin-wheel. As the helicopter descends rapidly, the rotor blades are still generating lift, even though they are not being powered by the engine. As the helicopter comes into ground effect, all that energy and lift is forced down into the ground and acts as a cushion of air that allows the helicopter to land.

 

Physics at work!

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This was easily the hardest and scariest element of helicopter training so far - dropping like a 1,000lb brick is not a comfortable feeling, but an absolutely necessary one as this training might one day help save my life! Though incredibly uncommon, accidents and emergencies do happen - what I love about aviation is that there is a procedure and a checklist for EVERYTHING - so when it happens, work the problem and get down safely. Live to fly another day!