Ensure that your blades are securely fastened in your blade grips. Not too tight that it will cause vibration though. Curtis Youngblood recommends that they're tight enough that if you hold the helicopter on it's side, the blades will not move in the grips. If you have the blades too loose and an auto has gone wrong and you've lost a lot of head speed, there's a higher chance of having a boom strike when you hit the ground than if you've got tight blades.
Make sure the engine will light back up again!
The last thing you want to happen is for the engine to die when you've flicked the switch to abort a bad auto. What I do to check this on both helicopters is fly them around for a couple of minutes to get the engines up to operating temperature then land and let them idle for about 10 seconds, then quickly stab the collective and make sure they spark up without any hesitation. Be careful how you do this. For a hi-torque machine like the Z230 or high powered 60, stabbing the collective like this on the ground could cause the machine to suddenly rotate slightly so be ready for it.
If your engine doesn't immediately respond (ie it bogs and dies, or even hesitates), then tune it properly before trying an auto.
Mini Autos
Now it's time to get used to the feel of your machine under zero power situations. I recommend flying around for a bit first to get your engine up to operating temperature, then bring your machine into a low hover at about 3 feet. Get yourself comfortable and when you're ready, flip the hold switch and let the machine settle to the ground adding collective as it does so.
If the helicopter 'jumps' or 'dives' when you flip the switch, your hold pitch curve needs a bit of refinement. Ideally, you want the helicopter to smoothly settle to the ground.
Once you're used to the feel of flipping the switch and letting the heli settle to the ground, it's time to move on!
Practice your approaches

It's time now to start getting a feel of how the helicopter reacts in a unpowered descent. The idea of this exercise is to feel comfortable at the beginning of the auto so you don't panic and get used to managing the pitch on the way down so you don't lose headspeed and keep the helicopter on the intended flight path.

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