My student and I were busy with Excercise 14, emergencies. We had completed simulated engine failures throughout the circuit in previous lessons and he had just been briefed on EFATO, which I usually leave until last and until I am comfortable the student will behave appropriately.
Being a heavy student we took off, flew a normal circuit and landing and then after take-off we flew another circuit repositioning about 100' agl on final, took power and climbed to about 200' agl checked that the airspeed was good and closed the power pushing the nose forward to maintain speed and energy for the round out. In essence no difference to a glide-approach initiated lower than usual. Well, the Hands of the Gods intervened and we ended up with a very high Rate Of Descent and too little distance to regain adequate airspeed on the roundout resulting in a three pointer bounce which left the nose-wheel behind. We skidded about 30meters down the runway and came to a stop on the grass next to the runway. The engine was still running so we shut down and put the rotor brake on. After leaving the machine we walked back up the runway to fetch the wheel and noticed the windsock had swung 180deg and the wind was picking up to gusts of 7 to 10kts.
As the instructor I do believe that I failed to notice the wind shift and got caught by the dragon of the downwind.
Lesson re-learned. I will remind myself constantly that EFATO demo's need more care and attention in future. Phew. Close. Thankful its just a nose-wheel, prop tips and some fiberglass-work. Toys can be fixed - fortunately there were no injuries or worse.
To my student, Ok Paul, Thats how NOT to do it, see?
Well at least you know what to expect in a real EFATO in future, beware! If you and I both learned a valuable, potenitally life-saving lesson, then it was a good lesson.
We'll be up and flying real soon.
Len
