Harrier mates used to do a hovering course at Shawbury before the OCU, does this happen for the F 35?
The Harrier hover course was highly entertaining but of fairly questionable value. For a start the cyclic operates in the opposite sense to the throttle (pull for up vs push for up). Much of the requirement for the Shawbury hours came from the Harrier sim's low-fidelity visuals and lag from the eye tracker. I would assume, but I don't know, that the F35 sim should be able to display everything needed for hover training, obviating the need to use a helicopter.