Amazingly cool and interesting plane footage

[RizzoTheRat]

Damage to the tail there caused by the main rotor hitting it, is that related to the initial engine incident or the blades bending a bit too much on a hard landing?

[havoc]

RizzoTheRat said:

Damage to the tail there caused by the main rotor hitting it, is that related to the initial engine incident or the blades bending a bit too much on a hard landing?

Someone in the comments suggested that the pilot let the rotor rpm get too low, but my (limited) knowledge is wondering how that can cause a tailstrike.

[xeny]

havoc said:

Someone in the comments suggested that the pilot let the rotor rpm get too low, but my (limited) knowledge is wondering how that can cause a tailstrike.

At a guess, lower rotor RPM means more disc deflection to get a given amount of cyclic control authority? Boom strikes when I flew RC helicopters were generally at the flair at the bottom of an autorotation as you were pulling back the cyclic to lose forward speed.