The grind of the hover

Three days in and I'm learning how to hover the aircraft. With straight and level flight, climbing/descending and turning whilst level/climbing/descending covered over previous days, we flew a couple of hours today trying the grasp the most difficult skill in all of my aviation training.

About seven to eight years ago I undertook my private fixed-wing pilots licence that I chipped away at when I could afford it. On a student budget, this allowed a flight lesson about once every week or two. The amount of time it took each lesson to familiarise myself with flight training inevitably stretched the training out longer than it needed to be. So as a lesson learned the hard way, I've approached my chopper license differently by getting the theory subjects out of the way before my flying, and taking time off work so as to fly every day. Yes, things are sinking in, but flying training is incredibly demanding on the brain. There are a lot of new motor skills and procedures to learn and today we attempted the hardest manoeuvre I've ever encountered on an aircraft.

To hover the aircraft, you have to ensure that it doesn't sink or lift (using the "collective"), doesn't yaw or twist left or right (with the pedals which control the tail rotor), and doesn't swing all over the place or move in any direction across the ground (using the "cyclic" or joystick-looking device). Left to itself, a helicopter is unstable and will crash whereas an aeroplane can be trimmed and glide hands free, therefore you must have hands-on control of the helicopter at all times. Since the chopper is a highly sensitive machine, all control inputs have to not only be extremely slight but must pre-empt what is going to happen next. I did manage to hover for short periods but after two hours of this my brain is nothing short of fried.

The picture below was taken this morning. It was a beautiful day with high cloud about and a slight easterly wind over the airport. Nil wind provides the best opportunity for learning the hover but since I'll have to be able to hover in all wind situations it was good to have a breeze today. The instructors keep saying that taking a while to nail the hover is normal so hopefully after some time for everything to sink into the brain it becomes a little bit easier at lift off tomorrow!