Me and Autorotation

Me sitting in a Bell Helicopter

Stop me if you heard this before:  At one time we had a youthful fun-loving, younger than us division officer.  He, as most officers in our unit, was an helicopter pilot, and had to log in so much training flight hours per month.  One day he took me for a ride in a Bell Helicopter, name not after the little dinner bell they look like, but Bell Aircraft.  Before hand he has told us about intentionally flying over the nudist colony at Cape May and waving.  I thought that might be our touring scene for the day.

But no, we got very high up and he turned off the motor and the propeller stopped and we started to fall.  He looked at me and said "Look no hands!" and laughed like a maniac.

We fell and fell closer to earth.

When we got within splattering distance the propellers started turning on their own.  The wind resistance  started the props to turn on their own.  By the time we were almost ground level they were turning so fast they eased us to the ground gently. 

 "That" he said, "is autorotation."