Look closely at your posture.
I bet you are sitting slightly bent forward with your right shoulder forward and your neck curved slightly back.
You probably have more weight on one butt cheek and one foot forward of the other.
Note too that you are probably very tense. Being in pain isn’t helping.
You don’t need anymore than slight toe pressure on the pedals…in cruise you just need your feet on the pedals to keep the them from moving.
Do not however fly with your feet flat on the floor..
Relax ….Have a good time. Easy for me to say.
When I had about 2-3 hours and the poor machine was gyrating like a dervish while I was gripping the cyclic like I was trying to strangle an angry, venomous serpent, pumping the collective like a water pump, twisting the throttle like I was grinding pepper while attempting to push the pedals out of the nose of the helicopter the instructor took control, put one finger on top of the cyclic, one on the end of the collective, and the toe of his boots lightly on the pedal. He then did a perfect hover pattern, looked at me with sadness and lamented…” Its really just not that hard, you’re making it difficult for yourself!”
A little added humour Photo of one technique to make folks not grip the cyclic too hard ….worked even better when folks smoked…use the student’s cigarette. It worked.
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