Time Spent Hovering
Hello,
What a great thread...loads of really good advice...tons of ideas for both students and instructors.
This post goes mostly to instructors (and instructors-to-be).
As an instructor myself, I have very definite ways I approach hover training.
One of the major factors is the time I spend 'in the field' hovering with a student.
I am always amazed when I talk to some students, how long they spent...just hovering. The first post in this thread said that he had 'struggled for 6 hours'. I had a student come to me, dissatisfied with his old school. A quick look in his logbook revealed that he had done 10 hours of almost straight hover practice. No wonder he was dissatisfied.
My point is that spending more than 5-10 minutes of hover practice in any one flight can possibly be detrimental to the learning process. Frustration and fatigue can seriously slow a student down. While that student is sweating in his own anger at not being able to hover, other things could be being done...most of which will develop hover skills anyway. I therefore watch very carefully for signs of frustration creeping in, and motivation waning. Then we move on.
I generally downplay 'hovering' with the student. I don't want them to feel defeated before they start. I focus more on other skills and make the hovering a 'small' factor in their initial training, rather than the huge monster that it seems to be. (This thread probably doesn't help!)
Approaches are a great way to learn hovering. I remember somewhere in this thread, the poster said that his first successful hover was after an approach, and he didn't even notice he was hovering! The skill of reducing your speed to 0 kts is a progressive way to get to the hovering stage. The student makes an approach to the slowest he / she has control, then goes around (with a little help from the instructor) for another try. The student doesn't even know he / she is 'learning to hover'.
Airspeed transitions, hover taxiing and indeed any other maneuver will help the student attain the skills of hovering.
So in summary, as I said, 5-10 minutes in a lesson, then other maneuvers is much better than 20-30 minutes of sweat, frustration and anger.
cl12pv2s