Sep 1, 2026 · 54 min · 14 segments
Colonel Todd O’Malley begins a four-part journey through the history of Canadian tactical and special operations aviation. Now Director Air and Space at CANSOFCOM, Todd looks back on the unlikely path…
Todd O'MalleyGuest
Brian MorrisonHost
First of all, it's funny you mentioned the music because there was that AM station in Moose Jaw as well.
Which is also interesting because Phil ended up on Aurora's for a short time, so we were on squadron together.
The other thing was we're talking about auto rotations, and I actually think we've never explained what those are on the show.
Can you quickly just explain to listeners what an auto rotation is and what it involves?
Yeah, I guess the best way to equate it is if you lost your engines in an airplane, you can glide.
But if you're in a helicopter and you have an engine failure, your rotor system will still turn.
If you look down at your chin bubble window down by your feet in a helicopter, that's probably give or take where you're going to meet the earth.
And the way auto rotation really works is as, as soon as you would have an engine failure, you wanted to try to lower the collective to take any pitch off of your rotor blades, which would in theory during flight, it's helping you fly, but you're trying to basically keep your rotor, uh, your rotor disc at a speed that when you get very close to the ground and you start to flare, you have enough energy built up into your rotor system that you can do one collective check up And now you're using that cushion from your blades to cushion your landing.
You're watching your rotor because you're trying to keep that energy in the rotor head, the blades.
And just about, I'd say maybe 20 feet above the ground, you start to do a flare, a bit of a flare.
First of all, it's funny you mentioned the music because there was that AM station in Moose Jaw as well.
Which is also interesting because Phil ended up on Aurora's for a short time, so we were on squadron together.
The other thing was we're talking about auto rotations, and I actually think we've never explained what those are on the show.
Can you quickly just explain to listeners what an auto rotation is and what it involves?
Yeah, I guess the best way to equate it is if you lost your engines in an airplane, you can glide.
But if you're in a helicopter and you have an engine failure, your rotor system will still turn.
If you look down at your chin bubble window down by your feet in a helicopter, that's probably give or take where you're going to meet the earth.
And the way auto rotation really works is as, as soon as you would have an engine failure, you wanted to try to lower the collective to take any pitch off of your rotor blades, which would in theory during flight, it's helping you fly, but you're trying to basically keep your rotor, uh, your rotor disc at a speed that when you get very close to the ground and you start to flare, you have enough energy built up into your rotor system that you can do one collective check up And now you're using that cushion from your blades to cushion your landing.
You're watching your rotor because you're trying to keep that energy in the rotor head, the blades.
And just about, I'd say maybe 20 feet above the ground, you start to do a flare, a bit of a flare.
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