Emergencies: engine failure, IMC escape and malfunctions

1. Step 1 of 3

   Engine failure: already in autorotation

   The rotor was never engine-driven, so when the engine stops nothing happens to the lift. The aircraft becomes a steady, steep glider: lower the nose to the flight manual's best-glide airspeed, and it descends under full control to a landing that uses almost no ground roll.

   The sequence your instructor will drill

   • Airspeed first: the manual's glide speed, immediately. Altitude spent here buys options nothing else can.
   • Field second: turn toward the landing area you were already tracking, because gyroplane pilots fly with a field in mind the whole flight: into wind if possible.
   • Cause third, time permitting: fuel selector, ignition, carb heat: the checklist items worth one pass.
   • Fly it all the way down: flare per your type's technique; the touchdown is short and slow.

   The practical test's power-off accuracy task, touching down within a couple hundred feet of a chosen point, exists because this is a genuinely practicable skill in a gyroplane.

2. Step 2 of 3

   Inadvertent IMC: the escape

   A VFR pilot who blunders into cloud has seconds before the inner ear starts lying: spatial disorientation follows shortly for a pilot with no instrument training. The escape is drilled precisely because instinct fails here:

   The moment it happens

   Believe the instruments, not your body. Wings level on the attitude and heading references, hold altitude, resist every sensation that disagrees.

   The manoeuvre

   A gentle, standard-rate 180-degree turn back to the air you just left, which was visual seconds ago. Then get help: confess to ATC on your current frequency or 121.5. Nobody has ever been sanctioned for asking their way out of cloud.

   The real lesson is the go/no-go one: this situation is almost always entered slowly, scud-running under a lowering ceiling. The escape exists; not needing it is the skill.

3. Step 3 of 3

   Malfunctions and the gear you carry

   Malfunction	Response pattern
   Carb or induction ice	The power-loss-on-descent classic from the systems lesson: carb heat per the manual, expect momentary roughness.
   Electrical failure	The engine keeps running on its own ignition. Reduce load, land at the nearest suitable field: no radio is an inconvenience, not an emergency.
   Smoke or fire	Memory items from your manual: fuel and master off as directed, and get on the ground now. This is the one where the glide skill pays compound interest.
   Instrument failure	Cross-check against the others; fly attitude and known power settings. A failed airspeed indicator is flyable with attitude and RPM.

   Survival gear, matched to the ground below

   • The practical test asks what you carry over mountains, water, desert and cold: water, signalling (a charged phone, a PLB if you fly remote), insulation, and flotation when the route is over water beyond glide range.
   • The gyroplane's short landing roll means the aircraft usually arrives survivable; the kit is for the hours after.
   • After any accident: the NTSB obligations from the flight-planning lesson.

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FAA Rotorcraft Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-21 emergency chapters, and AIM guidance on inadvertent IMC (public domain). Memory items and glide speeds are your flight manual's.