A review of NTSB accident briefs clearly demonstrates that wire strikes are the primary cause of fatal accidents, followed by blade stall due to low RPM and continued flight into IMC. These are by far the most preventable fatal accidents and require intensive training in avoidance and prevention techniques as well as pilot judgment training.

The FAA, in its February 15, 1995 "Flight Standardization Report", has suggested several changes to the R-22 Helicopter. A few of these involve expensive modifications to the cyclic and collective controls. One of the suggestions involves an improved rotor speed governor system, although the present governor system proved to be very expensive to maintain and is not used by most pilots, especially in a flight training environment. Most experienced R-22 flight instructors agree that low RPM problems are a result of rapid overpitching of the collective, causing an RPM droop. This is similar to any powered helicopter RPM droop but, unlike a turbine, the throttle in the R-22 will respond immediately if the pilot is properly taught how to coordinate the throttle/collective without relying on the correlator or the governor.

I don't know about the R44 in detail, but other piston powered helicopters suffer low RPM because of governor failures, governor misrigging or wear, pilots moving the collective and/or pedals faster than the governor or engine can respond, the engine just plain running out of power to accelerate the rote (altitude, temperature, engine deterioration, etc.) AND ON A REALLY BAD DAY ..... all of the above, at the same time :).

>Stupid question maybe but how does one get low rpm in an R22 with the rpm governor?

As you're winding the throttle up, click the governor on and see when it engages. Increase it slowly and you'll see that at around 80% RPM it kicks in and winds things up to 100%. Below about 80 you leave the governed range and you're on your own.

 If your engine gives out, the pitch you're pulling on the main rotor means that it slows fairly quickly. Governor doesn't help you here at all! :)

It appears that the original governor had both engine and rotor control. Later the rotor portion was dropped.

If the governor were off and the Nr was in excess of 104% and then it was turned on, the detection system would signal the gearmotor to simultaneously decrease throttle and increase collective reducing the rotor speed to the deadband range of 101% and 104%. Conversely it would do the opposite if the system were below 101% and the governor was turned on.

One of my co-workers was one of the designers of the Cierva "Skeeter" (later Saunders Roe) He indicated they examined simplified controls, similar to Landgraf and what you are proposing, on both a variation of the "Skeeter" and a small, two-place coaxial helicopter as an Army (British) scout vehicle. He recalled the approach that worked the best (from test with non-aviation Army personnel flying the vehicles) was one where the vehicle engine had an automatic throttle (rotor speed) control based on the vehicle demand. Pilots had a collective for "up-and-down" movement, cyclic for "lateral" ("point the nose in the direction you want to go"), and rudder pedals for "heading hold" (primarily in hover as describe by the Landgraf article). It seemed to work well as they trained some 20 British Army personnel, all of whom had no previous flying experience of any kind, to successfully fly the vehicles for a 300 hour evaluation with no accidents! This was similar to the approach proposed and attempted by the HoppiCopter.