RE: First auto = First crash
Try doing little baby autos too...
Just hover 3 or 4 feet off the ground, into the wind, and auto down. You don't have to worry about - pitch, just worry about getting your helicopter onto the ground without loosing too much speed. Then you can work your way up and up and up... Eventually, around the 20 to 30 foot mark, is where you will have to start adding negative pitch on your decent.
It is possible, but start with baby steps. and also as the hockey guy (I'm canadian, all I see is hockey) says, make sure you blades are tight.
Your going to want about 12 degrees of positive pitch at full stick.
Hope this helped!
carlyle