Is this a reasonable way of thinking about an auto-rotation? Related to this question.

My instructor described an auto-rotation as:


Entry.  Lever down, stick back, pedal in.
Fly normally, with a little tweaking of RRPM to keep it in the green, until about 50 feet above the ground.
Perform a quick stop.
Perform an engine failure in the hover.


I can see the logic in this but, all of the autos that I have done have been far too busy to think about it like this and all the ones I've done to the ground have been run-ons so step 4 was not an option.  Without significant extra training and experience I would not even contemplate a zero-zero landing so in practice, I will probably never get to test the theory.

Is this a valid way of thinking about the manoeuvre?  I'm not suggesting that anyone does anything other than what they were taught, just thinking about how these four manoeuvres roll into one.
First off, auto-rotation is a general term for all helicopters and the process varies between different air-crafts and the cause of the auto-rotation. For example, in auto-rotation due to loss of tail rotor thrust you can (and should) descend with some collective power and reduce descent rate. Also, in such auto-rotation there is also a mandatory step 2.5 - cut the power. Otherwise, the craft will rotate out of control in the quick stop.

Also various helicopter types behave differently while auto-rotating such as bigger helicopters start flaring at least 125 feet above ground.

As for the steps described - I'll agree that they break down nicely the process into other familiar processes, even though obviously not entirely accurate. I think the main difference is that flaring from altitude in a 1500-3000 ft/second descend and approaching a quick stop usually with speed forward rather than downward - require significantly different flight technique and practice.