re Leatherman saving the day: I read an article several years ago
that I should have clipped and saved. It was a story about three guys
in a small helicopter, probably a Hiller 12 or Bell 47, that were doing
forestry work or something similar in high country. The machine
suddenly started climbing and the pilot had to apply full throttle to
keep the RPM in the green, and had lost collective control because an
unsafetied nut had fallen off the bolt connecting the collective rod to
the swash plate and the bolt had departed. The CP caused the system to
go full up.
Here's the problem: reducing throttle to come down would result in
massive RPM loss, and since centrifugal forces are crucial to keeping
the blades out straight, this wasn't an option. Full throttle uses up
the limited fuel at an alarming rate. Running out of fuel means no
autorotation, since the collective can't be reduced.
Prepare to die, or fix the problem. One of the forestry guys, after
being briefed by the pilot who could see what had happened through that
big canopy, climbed out and stood on the structure, and somehow managed
to get the collective rod reconnected to the swash plate using the awl
of his Leatherman as a bolt. He stayed there and held it in place, with
all that machinery whirling over his head, several thousand feet up,
balanced on a steel tube, while the pilot brought the thing to earth.
This must be somewhere on the 'net. I wouldn't know where.

Dan