There is a "dead man's curve". If you're low enough, you can survive a pure drop. If you have enough forward speed, you can turn that into lift. If you're hi

There is a "dead man's curve". If you're low enough, you can survive a pure drop. If you have enough forward speed, you can turn that into lift. If you're high enough, you can get enough rotor speed to turn that into enough lift to slow down the drop. But there are areas in the height/velocity equation where you probably die. Chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height-velocity_diagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height-velocity_diagram