Well, excuuse me!
I am a humble plank driver with less than an hour spent on the odd hop in a helicopter. I got this explanation about 'spilling the lift' without really forming any opinion about it, other than that it sounded plausible. Whether it is good technique or akin to drying your cat off in the microwave is far beyond my ken.
All I know from direct observation of the Nigeria Police Air Wing in action, trying to land a Long Ranger on their ramp, is that some guys seem to get very wobbly indeed just trying to hit Planet Earth. The helo was bobbing up and down like a fishing float with a carp on the hook, there. And on the other hand the Pan African pilots at Escravos used to make it look so easy I thought, 'I could do that!' So I guess from what I have just been told this is the sort of 'crutch' that a pilot might use if he's not so handy with the collective. Live and learn.
In the wonderful fixed-wing world we have an equivalent, the guy who gets to stirring the ailerons and elevators trying to achieve a really smooth touchdown. There you are, floating along in ground effect with what looks like a Bruce Lee action sequence going on over there; the controls have so little 'bite' that the airplane really isn't reacting very much but yer man is so busy that he hasn't noticed that! Of course if you point this out to him he gets mortally offended that you are criticising some technique he was taught by some goofy instructor way back when. Sigh...
Last edited by chuks; 23rd Mar 2006 at 09:58.