Many years ago a group of H-34s were flying one after the other in a long line. The lead pilot flew into a canyon and was suddenly enveloped in a cloudbank. The lead pilot redioed to the following pilots to come to a hover do a 180 and fly out of the canyon. Since the loss of visibility was progressive the other pilots still had some spatial reference. All got out of the situation except the lead pilot. He reduced airspeed to zero and came to what he felt was a stationary hover. The H-34 in a hover would hang down 3-degrees by the tail and seven degrees wheel down to the left. His instruments told him he was in climbing bank but his barometric instruments told him he was stationary. It didn’t take long for vertigo to start and shortly thereafter he crashed.
He did not have an ASE,which would have corrected for the hover attitude.
