It’s insane how hard hovering is. I had about 35 hours of fixed wing time, and treated myself to a helicopter lesson for my birthday.
Hovering was so humbling! You’d be stable for a few seconds and then oops now we’re suddenly crabbing backwards whilst rolling laterally whilst exacerbating everything with pilot-induced oscillations in every conceivable axis of movement.
Having to constantly enter three inputs whenever the external environment changes (ie wind, gust), or any time any one of the three inputs change… it absolutely requires some new neural pathways to be forged!
I flew with Patty Wagstaff many years later and even she admitted hovering was so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked).
Hovering was so humbling! You’d be stable for a few seconds and then oops now we’re suddenly crabbing backwards whilst rolling laterally whilst exacerbating everything with pilot-induced oscillations in every conceivable axis of movement.
Having to constantly enter three inputs whenever the external environment changes (ie wind, gust), or any time any one of the three inputs change… it absolutely requires some new neural pathways to be forged!
I flew with Patty Wagstaff many years later and even she admitted hovering was so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked).