The controls both Hydraulics ON and Hydraulics OFF are noticably heavier on the ex military AS350's than your standard civilian machine. I believe hovering with the hydraulics OFF is not permitted in the flight manual on the military machine.
Word on the grape vine is that the instructor tried to pick the machine up off the ground with hydraulics OFF
, even though the student, who owned the now wrecked machine
said hydraulics OFF hovering was not permitted in the flight manual.