Luck of the IRISH ?

So today after the bearing replacement, I went out to the local field for some shakedown flights. I was super impressed by the newly re-discovered power so I decided to ring it out to the best of my ability. The bird is a rappy 50 with a hyper in it. I was probably about 30' up or so doing some single pirouette flips, and on the invert on one of em' the dreaded noise of ENGINE STOPPAGE !! DOH !!! I blew out a glow plug probably from a lean run. I froze for just a second, because I havent really practiced inverted autos, except for mile high. Got it rolled to its belly, and immediately I noticed I had very little energy left in the head.... DOH !! well I have 20' might as well give it a try.... Full negative, It accelerated to the earth. Now let me tell you that where we fly is kind of tight. It has a big grove of Olive trees on the south side, and its dirt on the main flying area. I new I was over the olive trees. as I fed in negative I also had to bump the up cyclic to get it to be over a recoverable area.... This really slowed the head. now IM SCREWED slow head @ 10' up. Well it just so happens that the trajectory of the heli floated right into a soft green pepper tree bush that was about 6' tall. I went over to the tree expecting the worst.... absolutely nothing not even a bent fly bar, or spindle.... when it hit the blades were probably @ 50 rpm I was so lucky !! Im off to by a lottery ticket !!!!

Woo hoo good save!!!

I have a similar story... I was just putting around with my raptor50 one day and I've never tried an auto so just goofing around I hit throttle hold. Well I chickened out as soon as I hit it and I turned it back off... well no engine noise came back...:O OH CRAP! So I did just like you did and applied neg pitch and down she went... unfortunately it was pretty far away and it went behind a 4 foot dirt hill... I somehow added pos collective and hoped for the best. I ran across the desert to see my heli sitting there and the blades just coming to a stop! WOO HOO

Well wasn't trying to steal your glory or anything...

AWESOME Recovery though!

Nice recovery! When things go wrong your true skills really come to life, diving and giving it negative collective probably gained you some head speed enough to get it close to where it needed to be - good job!

Good save! Gotta love the bushes. I blade stopped my 90 at night a few weekends ago - it fell from about 200 feet, hit some powerlines and then fell into some trees. The damage was minimal! Blades, flybar, metal grip posts, and front canopy stand-offs.

Colin