From an old friend (170'):
“Take a CD marker pen and put a few straight lines across the skids and cross tubes, anywhere you think will be in your peripheral vision, when looking straight down at the hook. Maybe mark each line with a number, say 1-10 along the skid and A-J along the cross tube…
Go into an OGE hover (or have another pilot do it from the other seat) and look down at the remote hook. In this perfect hover, the hook might hang at the imaginary intersection of lines D cross-tube and 5-skid. Hold the hover, and try to imprint this sight picture in your mind, with the aid of the index marks. Remove the ones you don’t need on the next landing and in future, anytime you’re told to “ fly the hook, not the helicopter”, fly the sight picture, not the helicopter!”
Hope that helps
phil