Less than a second sure sounds fast. I thought that the quick draw guys
were not too far under 0.3 sec and they are spring loaded and cocked in
their event.
A while back I had the collective trim spring break in my Baby Belle just as
I was going skids level at the end of an approach. There was a loud bang
and the collective jumped up close to my ear with the helicopter following
it very closely to at least 10' in the air. At the same time I was treated
with the low rotor alarm bleeping in my headset. I know that it took me
more than 1 second to analyze and react. Thankfully I had sufficient power
and low enough inertia in the blades to recover before I hit the ground.
BTW, I no longer use the spring system as collective trim.
I used to score around 0.25 sec for reaction time, but that was for events
where I was cocked and ready. I think that if I was by myself in my
helicopter and the engine failed, it would not take me very long to get the
collective down. I fly with my left hand on the collective 99.99999999% of
the time. But even then I would be surprised if it didn't take me more than
1 sec.
All that said, I did witness a low time helicopter pilot take off with the
cyclic locked. The ship was tilting and headed to the edge of the 40X40
helipad. There was a blur of hands as the left hand came off the
collective, grabbed the cyclic as the right hand released the cyclic,
grabbed and released the lock and then the hands returned to their normal
position. The helicopter only moved about 4' laterally during all of the
above. With the locked cyclic refusing to move, he didn't have to analyze
the problem very long. He very nicely avoided a crash. This guy was a
high time Stuck wing pilot with CFI, CFII, MEL etc. and was, he believed,
religious in check list operations. He said later that he had adrenalin
leaking out of both ears.
You know all of this sure makes an argument for the benefits of simulator
training. You can practice this stuff without stuffing your helicopter.
How much/hr. and where is the closest one? There is a good magazine article
here that could provide some good advertising for simulator training. I
can imagine several current helo pilots doing just a simple course in ATC
procedures with some emergencies added for spice and the time history
recorded. You would have to keep the helo pilots from talking to each other
to avoid pre-loading and contaminating your results. I'll bet that they
would sign up for more sim time shortly afterwards.