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Old 5th Dec 2016, 08:28
  #5 (permalink)  
Arm out the window
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: North Queensland, Australia
Posts: 2,980
Received 14 Likes on 7 Posts
Good that you're looking to improve, and it will happen - as mentioned above, your instructor should be able to help you out, but here's a good way to approach it, I think:

1. Don't look too close to the aircraft - look out the front, don't fixate on any one thing but be aware of the horizon, and also any tendency for the machine to move (you'll see this in your peripheral vision even when looking forward).

2. Take it slow, and don't be tempted to throw the collective down to just get it on the ground; rather, just keep hovering lower and lower and don't stop flying it until the collective is fully down, cyclic and pedals centred.

3. Your collective controls the up and down, pedals control where you're pointing and cyclic which way you're dragging across the ground (if any), so lower the collective slowly but PAUSE it as soon as you sense drift (sideways or fore and aft, which you will fix with a small cyclic input in the other direction) or yaw (which you will fix with pedal). Only when you have cancelled drift and yaw should you continue smoothly lowering the collective. Then just repeat the above until you're happily on the ground.

4. Every landing is a slope landing, so be prepared that if the aircraft is hanging left skid low, as soon as that skid touches and the body rolls right, you'll need a bit of left cyclic to stop a drag across the ground to the right. Think about the way the disc and therefore your lift vector follows what you do with the cyclic - if you don't move it and your body tilts right (seeing as your bum is strapped into the tilting helicopter) then your lift vector will also tilt right, dragging you and your machine bodily and embarrassingly across the tarmac!

Relax, enjoy, don't rush, stop all drift and yaw before continuing to move that collective and you'll be fine.
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