rsm,I`d just like to add a few observations to the excellent advice given already. Make sure you are as comfortable sitting in the helo as you would be in a good armchair-it obviously depends on your stature, but it helps if you can hold the cyclic with your right wrist just resting on your right knee, and `caress` the cyclic in your right hand.Also, don`t wear big boots/trainers when flying; again ,your feet should rest lightly on the pedals, so you can have plenty of `feedback`Same for the collective lever- use cushions if necessary,otherwise you will get very tense, and overcontrol.
Your instructor should probably started your hovering `phase` by showing you the effects of each individual control,ie you control yaw whilst he controls collective and cyclic, then collective, collective and yaw, cyclic, then all three, so that you can see all the interactions. Remember that collective and yaw have very little ` lag` in aircraft response when you make an adjustment. The cyclic has a finite `lag`, but that is the fuselage response; the rotor disc moves instantaneousely, but the aircraft will only move after the `lag`.So, as there is this lag , when making a cyclic input, in any direction, following the aircraft movement, you must `anticipate` the `lag` to stop the aircraft continuing in the direction it is travelling.Try to make correction to cyclic inputs of about half, then half again, ie gradually reducing, Don`t worry about moving around, or trying to get back to where you started. It`s much better to be smooth on the controls,and above all RELAXED.Use a reference point some distance away in the 1-2 o`clock position, but also something ahead to maintain your heading. Don`t look down at the daisies in front of the nose. Your instructor should only start you off on hovering for maybe 10 min at a time, and doing other exercises in between, otherwise you will become tense and frustrated, as Whirly says. Try to `keep it light` on all the controls, and cultivate an` ear` for RRPM/ENGINE as well. Soon ,you`ll wonder what all the fuss about hovering was all about.....Then, you`ll want to try spot turns, around the nose/tail,backwards circling, sideways loops, and with a 360 turn at the top !!!!!!!!!! Relax, relax, you hum it...Syc.
