I'm falling in behind SoCal App on this one. A hovering auto from 15 feet in a 300 is going to be very messy. The 500 has noticably more rotor inertia than the 300, and hovering autos in the 500 from 12 feet (the POH high safe limit) were very challenging, with no room for getting it wrong. My mentor saying to me "just let it drop", and my saying back "just let it drop, and 3/4$M helicopter don't occur together in my same sentence". They did not when I started, they did when I finished, credit to my mentor! I really doubt that the 300 could have been flown the same way as we did in the 500. I think that's why the POH for the 300 suggests 7 feet as a maximum hovering height. If you can hover at 15 feet, you can hover more safely at 7 to 3 feet. If you can't hover at 15 feet safely, some more cruise flight and approaches to landing might be helpful.
During many phases of my training, we'd be flying within the HV curve, and in a number of cases, I could not see a reason for it. Other phases of flight would have us it a height, or position over the terrain where a safe engine out landing could not be made. I'd ask him, why are we flying (you teaching me to fly) in a way from which a safe landing could not be made, particularly when there is an alternative. His answer would always be "We just accept the risk". Not wanting to be rude, I accepted that answer, though did ask myself who "we" is? It's a very new, very expensive helicopter we could wreck. Is "we" my insructor and I? My instructor alone (he is PIC after all), but then it must be me if I'm solo, I'm now PIC, but doing what I'm told. Or is it the insurance company, to whom my very weak excuse could only be, "well, that's the way I was taught...would you please pay...".
I never did reconcile that question....
Paying would nearly have been worth it, for how much fun it was! Keep it up Lister, the best is yet to come!
But take all of the foregoing as coming from a 75hour 300/500 pilot, by no means expert!
Pilot DAR