Learning to hover!
 

Hi have just started my helicopter training,have done about 6 hours really struggling with the hover any advice,comments etc

keep practicing you'll get the hang of it. i don't remember how long it took for me to hover reasonably well, but it seemed to take forever.

i found looking at something far away helped me be more stable, my instructor was always yelling at me to not look at the ground.

also try and relax, i found after my first few lessons my wrist would be sore from holding the cyclic so tight.

keep control movements to a minimum, it should take very little movement of the cyclic to hover and if you are constantly moving the collective or the pedals it gets a lot more complex.

also hovering into the wind is a lot easier, especially the stronger the wind is.

anyway hope that helps, i only have 50 hours now so others with more experience may be able to add more advice. just don't give up, once you get the hang of it it is a lot of fun :cool:

When learning to hover, i'm going to assume you are learning in an R22. Twitchy little buggers!
Get your head around this first. Pretend you are holding a shoelace with a snooker ball attached to the end of it. Now, holding the end of the string, swing the ball back and forth. Easy isn't it? Okay, now whilst swinging it, try and bring it to a stop quickly. What are you doing with your hand to get this to happen? In effect, you are moving the string in the same direction as the ball which kind of cancels out the motion. Like a pendulum. ( at this point, go and tie something to the end of a piece of string and move it forwards, backwards, left and right, always bringing the weighted object back to a perfect stop.

Ok, now to the real thing. Sitting in the helicopter, the cyclic is controlling the disc above your head (hopefully your instructor will have explained that the blades spinning above your head form a disc) which is what we are referring to.
You now have to imagine that the directional inputs made to the cyclic are the same as holding the shoe lace. Remember i'm just trying to help you get your head around the principal, not teach a hover. When you make a cyclic input, the aircraft starts to move in the direction of that movement after a slight delay. That delay will always be there but in time you will forget about it.
When you want to stop the movement in the direction you are going, move the cyclic back in the opposite direction. Remember what happens with the string? Make small movements. Relax! Relax! Don't stare at the ground. Look out a ways. What you have to do is picture the 'disc' above you as spinning in a flat plane parallel to the ground. If the wind gets under the front of the disc, it'll tip backwards so you will need to correct it with forward cyclic input, etc etc. Just try to imagine that disc as staying flat to keep you in a steady hover over a fixed point. Obviously, the stronger the wind, the more cyclic required to overcome movement. Going back to the string and ball, if you move the string, the ball follows as long as you keep accelerating in that direction until such time as you reach steady velocity and then the ball swings forwards. Initially, That's the cyclic anyway.
Use a reference ahead to maintain heading using the pedals. Small inputs only and just remember left pedal yaws left and right, right!!
The collective makes you go up and down. How easy is that!!
Don't worry about it taking time. I once taught a woman to fly who couldn't get straight and level within ten hours. She succeeded in the end though.
Good luck and any questions, just ask.
Oh, and if the above doesn't make any sense, don't worry about it.;)

PS I was told once that if you imagine the cyclic as a piece of soft dog poo wrapped in thin tissue, you won't grab it too tight.:E

Yes, it is even more difficult in high Summer when the sun is shining through the canopy and you are sweating like crazy. You will find that it suddenly comes together as your brain burns the synapse pathways - do you remember learning to ride a bike or to swim?

The day it clicked for me was when I was trying hard to get out of pendular instability when the instructor asked me what was the aircraft type that had just landed on the runway. I studied it and we had a short discussion about it, then he asked me what I was doing. Strewth, I was actu ally hovering in one place! Because my brain had been diverted to think about something else, the automatic reflex actions were starting to kick in. You will find that in a few hours time, you don't actually manually initiate a move to the right or left, you just sort of think it and lean that way and the helo follows.

Later it gets easier. It has to as your brain needs to be concerned about other things like RT, collision avoidance, other traffic etc etc.

Best fun you will ever have and this is the demanding bit.

Sure Whirly et al will give their instructors advice too...

But Iwould say don't worry too much at 6 hrs - it ll come together.

Also weather/£/availablity permitting fly as often as possible to avoid having to re master the skills learn in the previous lesson.

Stick at it too! I know at 20 hrs I was still flying dual, (due to the FAA regs), I felt I couldnt do a thing right and was about to give up. That night I got rather drunk... next morning felt better and that afternoon solo'd after about another hour dual.

PW

Around about 12 hours for me - and then, as my personal title suggests, I couldn't hover AND talk at the same time. No sounds would come from my mouth as I really was using 100% of my mental capacity. SOME might find that unbelievable but 'strue !

Everyone can learn to hover and once you've learnt, you'll not forget. Your instructor is probably saying to you, "small inputs, small inputs." What I found hard to grasp was exactly how small. Very small! The hovering came together for me, when I stopped bloody well fiddling with the cyclic and relaxed!

However, when it's windy, then it's more like bringing an unruly horse back under control!

You will get it, don't worry. Above all, don't turn it into a competition to try to beat others. "I did it in X hours, he did it in Y" . One area that you find difficult, someone else can find easy and VICE VERSA. Even if it takes you 15-20 hours (and I'm sure it won't), you are still getting air/flying experience and once you've got the hang of it the other lessons will progress in leaps and bounds.

Cheers

Whirlygig

PS - I also did the Pilotwolf thing and nearly gave up but got drunk instead :ok:

It's like learning to ride a bike - impossible till you can do it, and then you wonder what on earth the difficulty was. It takes a while, especially in the twitchy little R22, and you'll get on better if you can relax and accept that it's going to take a while. You're learning to manipulate three different and very sensitive controls, which all affect each other, and which all have a lag in them. So of course it's difficult! And you can't do it with your brain; you have to somehow get the messages to your hands and feet, so that they know when to react to a small movement of the helicopter, and which control to move and by how much. It's as though you're creating new reflexes.

Everyone learns differently, but for most people I don't think a lot of explanation really helps. So all I can really do is give you a few hints on how not to get in your own way....

1) If you try to relax and don't worry too much, it seems to help the creating-new-reflex process. Yes, I KNOW this is impossible!
2) Little and often is the best way. You're probably doing this anyway, right? A few minutes at the end of each lesson is the usual way, because you get too tired and tense after a few minutes, and it's counter-productive. So in fact you haven't done that much so far, just several few minute sessions.
3) Look well ahead, and keep reminding yourself to do that.
4) Don't get frustrated when all of the above doesn't seem to work.
5) Remember, you're supposed to be enjoying this, and it's not a competition. People learn to hover at very different rates, and it doesn't mean a thing, so don't worry about it.

And come back and tell us when you've cracked it...then go out in a gusty crosswind like we had last weekend, and you'll realise you hadn't. :eek: :)

rsm,I`d just like to add a few observations to the excellent advice given already. Make sure you are as comfortable sitting in the helo as you would be in a good armchair-it obviously depends on your stature, but it helps if you can hold the cyclic with your right wrist just resting on your right knee, and `caress` the cyclic in your right hand.Also, don`t wear big boots/trainers when flying; again ,your feet should rest lightly on the pedals, so you can have plenty of `feedback`Same for the collective lever- use cushions if necessary,otherwise you will get very tense, and overcontrol.
Your instructor should probably started your hovering `phase` by showing you the effects of each individual control,ie you control yaw whilst he controls collective and cyclic, then collective, collective and yaw, cyclic, then all three, so that you can see all the interactions. Remember that collective and yaw have very little ` lag` in aircraft response when you make an adjustment. The cyclic has a finite `lag`, but that is the fuselage response; the rotor disc moves instantaneousely, but the aircraft will only move after the `lag`.So, as there is this lag , when making a cyclic input, in any direction, following the aircraft movement, you must `anticipate` the `lag` to stop the aircraft continuing in the direction it is travelling.Try to make correction to cyclic inputs of about half, then half again, ie gradually reducing, Don`t worry about moving around, or trying to get back to where you started. It`s much better to be smooth on the controls,and above all RELAXED.Use a reference point some distance away in the 1-2 o`clock position, but also something ahead to maintain your heading. Don`t look down at the daisies in front of the nose. Your instructor should only start you off on hovering for maybe 10 min at a time, and doing other exercises in between, otherwise you will become tense and frustrated, as Whirly says. Try to `keep it light` on all the controls, and cultivate an` ear` for RRPM/ENGINE as well. Soon ,you`ll wonder what all the fuss about hovering was all about.....Then, you`ll want to try spot turns, around the nose/tail,backwards circling, sideways loops, and with a 360 turn at the top !!!!!!!!!! Relax, relax, you hum it...Syc.:ok:

what type are you flying everyone has assumed its a 22 ?

Loads of excellent advice has already been given, so my two penn'orth...

Despite all the good advice urging you to relax, of course nothing makes it more difficult to relax than being told to - this will come with time so just try your best not to tense up on the controls when you notice bits of you are starting to ache!

Less is more - if you are learning in an R22 then this may seem impossible at this stage, but the less you stir the cyclic, the more economical you are with movement, the more stable and controllable your hover will become. Watch your instructor and the minute pressures that he/she applies to the controls and try to emulate this (while on the subject, what do you experienced folk think about the whole "following through on the controls thing? I often found it more confusing as I was holding them so lightly so as not to interfere I hadn't a clue what was going on...)

Finally, enjoy it! You won't know what you are doing any differently when you finally manage a stable hover, but it's got to be one of the best feelings in the World!

Oh, and thanks to Pat Malone, who visits these forums. He was alongside me the day I cracked it, so it would be interesting to hear his advice...

Keep trying :ok:

DBChopper

DBChopper,
Extremely good point. :ok: I managed to do my PPL(A) and PPL(H) without having a clue how to follow through; like you, I was holding the controls too lightly, and never found it helped at all. Because no-one told me HOW to follow through! I now use Mike Greene's words, as taught on my instructor's course with him. I tell students, "Place your hands and feet on the controls, and apply enough pressure that you can feel what's happening, but not so much that you restrict my movements". Hopefully that gets the message across. It seems to, as I get comments like: "Oh, I see what you mean about only tiny movements".

Mike, if you happen to be reading this, I realise just about every day what a fantastic instructor you were; many, many thanks. :ok:

Keep going. It just 'clicks' suddenly.

Then things keep clicking through the next few hundred hours because learning never stops.

h-r

:ok:

Hovering a helicopter is very much like making love to a beautiful women. You hold the stick lightly in your right hand and move it gently: any rough movement is likely to cause upset. Your left hand should should be making gentle up and down movements but only if necessary: remember, you are not unblocking a sink. Your feet should be fairly static and should only be used if your balance is affected. Finally, a relaxed approach is more likely to have the desired effect for you both.

Swiss Tony

rsm,
Try a computer simulator. I use X-Plane. The $50 is well spent.(and $40 for a joystick)
Practice at home, about 20hrs on the sim and the real helo will probably be even easier to handle. Helped me.
But all the approach training on the sim did not seem to help.

Light finger grip, rest forearm on knee if possible, small movements.

Hover attitude!
For a given aircraft, c of g, wind, etc, there will be a picture out the front (horizon vs. coaming, windscreen struts etc) that corresponds to helicopter not drifting in any direction.
When you get the 'Pilot Induced Oscillations', look for and select the hover attitude and it will settle down remarkably.

Where do I look?
A relaxed scan in 3 main places - to the horizon out front for hover attitude, to about the 2 o'clock and middle distance for a general overview of what's going on, and closer in (say 10 ft from you) for hover height assessment.
Once you get comfy with it you'll be able to look anywhere and still keep it under control, but when you feel like you're fighting it, relax, breathe and scan.

One other thing I always remember from my early instructors' crusty words of wisdom was that if it takes 1 psi of pressure to move the pedals, try to use only that, rather than 150 psi on one pedal and 151 on the other one to acheive the same result!

rsm

Do not attempt to hover and chew gum at the same time!!!

Spit it out before flight! ;)

Worked for me.....

If your feel your struggling then your welcome to come and practice on my helisimulator. PM if you like.

Stick at it!

No Charge

Took me about ten hours,
once its there though you find yourself doing all sorts of things on the fato with a silly grin on your face. The best is when you get to hover taxi back to base past the tower when you know that you have been observed for the last few days struggling like hell.
Keep the inputs small, dont look at the ground - take a larger view and then place the top of the panel or something fixed in your peripheral vision with relation to the horizon and RELAX!!. I found that I had to almost force myself to relax but once I did it was so much easier. Its true when they say you get a motor reflex system, when it comes in to effect- and it surely will, you will have the greatest time of your life.
12 months ago I would have probably told you where to insert a helicopter, what a lot of wasted time I spent with a "helis are too dodgy" attitude. These are the best days of your life, I almost neglect my work to go flying sometimes, but its worth evry second of it.
Good luck, keep at it and let us know how you are getting along.

Micky:ok:

I have found that teaching just 5-10 minutes of hovering at the end of each of the initial flights is ten times more effective than going out for 'an hour of hovering'.

The mind works on the problem subconciously overnight and has an amazing ability to solve it over several days.

Using this technique, by the time it comes to the sixth flight the students are normally hovering without ever having had a single 'hovering flight'.

Loads of great advice given so far.

Remember that this is going to be the hardest thing about your flying course. And if like so many you are on an R22 then if you can hover a Robbie you can hover anything. If you are on another 2 seater then you can hover anything (including the robbie but not quite as prettily than you can hover your first type). If you are learning on a bigger type.... you lucky........!

Next time go out and don't think about the hover - if you are thinking about what inputs to make, then it is too late. Relax, keep your eyes moving (ie don't fixate on anything) and don't give a stuff if you can't do it. One day you will and you won't know why. Oh and if you take longer than average, don't worry you will be better than average at something else.

Happy flying

Keep your posture comfortable, relaxed and stable, it stops you moving your head around and changing your reference point for the aircraft attitude.

Look "down the road" into the middle distance with a quick scan in if you need to check your hover height. (Try driving your car staring at the closest part of the road over the bonnet and you'll see how hard it is) This enables you to get a reference point for the helicopters attitude and see an attitude change. The key to hovering is to correct any attitude change before the aircraft then moves over the ground from that change.

Keep your legs relaxed and don't push one foot against the other. You should be able to remove your right foot from the pedal without the left pedal moving. (A good way to relax your legs is to regularly remove your right foot a couple of cm from the pedal and then return it.) Downstream practice left and right spot turns using only your left foot with the right one removed (in the R22 H300 etc)

Keep your right forearm supported on your leg and only move your wrist and fingers. Only extreme control inputs (slope landings for example) will require you to move your arm. (A signwriter supports their arm for precise painting).

Keep a loose grip and don't wrap a fist around it. Make smooth inputs and wait momentarily for the effect. Use finger pressures only (if you are compressing the foam of the R22 controls you are way too tense).

The only interface you have with the machine is through the controls. The way you hold and manipulate the controls determines if that interface will be good or bad, and ultimately your precision as a pilot downstream.

It takes a while to learn to ride a bike, same thing for hovering, so just do the time.

Second that!

The start - didn't seem to matter what I did, it was like being tied to a chair on the end of a very wobbly spring.

Six flying hours later, first smooth day after various lessons held in a strong wind, 'whoa, Steve, why are you moving all the controls so much?' Alright, I thought, I'll keep them still. We might have been nailed there, six feet above the ground. I don't have the faintest idea what I was doing different, but it didn't take a lot of thinking to do it.

In the early stages of hovering, the important result is NOT staying over one spot, it is GETTING THE HOVER ATTITUDE. Once you are able to consistently hold this attitude, it is simply a matter of applying pressure to the cyclic to stop or start any movement. It isn't really a control input, it is just pressure.

The first thing is to control the yaw - MAKE IT POINT - because if the nose is spinning, nothing else is going to work. Stop the turn, put some distant object on a vertical line between your toes. If it goes under one foot or the other, treat it like a cockroach, and step on it with that foot. Make it point at the distant object.

THEN - keep the picture flat. Do whatever you have to do to make the horizon come back to the same reference point on the canopy bow. When the machine is dancing around and the attitude is well into the dynamic divergent phase, you might find that the machine is moving forward (you want to pull back on the stick) but the nose is up in the air, just before it starts to move backwards again. In this case, PUSH THE NOSE DOWN to get the attitude flat again, despite your urge to pull back to stop the movement. Do whatever you have to do to get the picture flat.

THEN - fix the height. Too high is not a problem. Too low, you will scare yourself and jerk the lever up and then you are too high - and now it is not a problem. Once it is all stable, pointing at your chosen object, and with a stable flat attitude, just "close down the picture" by a small reduction in collective. Wait till you stabilise at a lower height, then squeeze it down again a little. Wait. Wait. then adjust again. And you don't need to look close in at this stage - all your focus can be on the distance, as you are just working on the overall aspect of the sight picture.

Biggest fault for Bloggs here is trying to fix the height in one go.Down goes the lever, and because of the delay, nothing happens instantly. Bloggs sees nothing happen, so in goes another shove on the lever. The first input is starting to happen, and then here comes the ground really fast. UP goes the lever again, and the chase-your-tail starts again.

One collective pressure, wait, wait, adjust, wait.

OK? Make it point, keep the picture flat, then fix the height. Don't even consider playing with the lever until the point and flat bits are right, because the secondary effects of controls will just make it yaw and pitch all over again.

i agree with slowrotor - spend a few bucks on your pc and practise there

the hardest thing for me was to separate yaw from roll in my brain. i spent lots of time on the pc doing that. as others said, it suddenly clicked.

i then tried it with an instructor in a real helicopter and was hovering in no time and a fraction of the cost!

Just spend another couple of thousand and write back when you have 12hrs.
Yeesh...

RSM,

Like many have said, practice does make perfect. Try not to beat yourself up if you're not (or don't seem to be) making much progress, it will come I promise.

I had the same experience, so I invested flight sim setup which really helped me get the hang of the hand-eye coord. It's a great asset now in my instrument training.

If you're in San Francisco.... I don't s'pose you are,... but if you are I'll happily show you the ropes on this bad-boy.

All the best.

http://www.geocities.com/nycmr/choppers/cleartail1.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/nycmr/choppers/cleartail2.JPG

Now THAT'S a flight sim
 

Cleartail,

Would this one be better? ;)

http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/...ight%20sim.jpg

John, if that's a fair dinkum picture, well done!
Are there pedals down there somewhere?

AOTW

Not mine, just a nerd pic that arrived only last week! Obviously someone with way too much time on their hands ;)

Wow, your head must be spinning with all this good advice. Just one more thing...

Don't, absolutely don't, compare how long you're taking with how long others take. Do that, and you'll end up beating yourself up for no reason, because you'll think you "ought" to be able to do it in six hours, twelve hours, twenty hours, or whatever. It really, really REALLY, doesn't matter. People learn at different rates. Some pick it up fast, but are always a bit wobbly in any wind. Some take ages, but once they've got it, they're almost perfect in any conditions. I remember being told you couldn't hover for ages, and then you got it all of a sudden. Well, that seems to be the commonest way, but for me it was a slow gradual process from the beginning. Everyone's different. Relax, enjoy it, have a good laugh when you get into those pilot induced oscillations yet again, and trust that by this time next year, and probably long, long before.....you'll be hovering!!!!!! :ok:

I have 25hrs now on AB206, and there still come days where i really need to move the cyclic around like crazy... no wind though :O

I can't figure out how you can hover and not look at the ground for reference. Sure am gonna try that one tomorrow. And landing,.. I can't land properly if not looking at that little straw of grass before ground contact and letting the bird down. Then am i suppose to look at the ground? :}

How is a Jetranger compared to r22 when i comes to handling it in a hover?

Arm out the window and Ascend Charlie have the answer - Hover Attitude! The trick is identifying it and then correcting immediately it starts to wander from where you want it to be. Imagine correcting a painting that is hanging on a wall - you can be incredibly precise in getting it level visually and it is that level of precision that you need to develop selecting and maintaining your hover attitude. Unfortunately for the painting analogy, in the hover you want your picture of the world to sit at an angle to its frame (cockpit canopy, supports and coaming) but the concept remains the same.
All the information you need to hover well is out in front of you and the sooner you grasp the concept of hover attitude the sooner you will hover well. The brain is a fantastic machine for processing information you just need to look in the right place for that information.

I learnt in stages.

Stage 1 - Find the biggest field you can and try and stay inside it.

Stage 2 - Find a smaller field....



:ok:

Phoinix:

Your problem about stirring the stick could lie in your reference point. Don't look too close in.

Think of balancing a stick on your finger - lots of stirring initially. Look at the tip of the stick, and the stirring slows down. Look at your finger, and the stick hits you on the head.

All you will achieve by stirring the stick is (in extremes) reach the limits of the hydraulic pump, the controls will lock, and give you one heck of a fright. At the other end, all you do is continually tilt the lift vector away from the vertical, waste lift, and sink towards the ground.

A 206 will be less skittish that an R22, and with its inertia there will be a slightly longer delay between the control input and the end result of movement.

For holding the cyclic - imagine you are a duchess holding a tramp's cock. Do it that way, you just can't overcontrol!

hi RSM- I must agree with Whirly. You have quite alot of advice sofar.
Read it all - digest everything and next time you get into a helicopter forget everything you have read
- Why? - 'cause as a previous post mentioned the human brain is a great machine, somewhere in the back of your head the advice you have read will make sense- don't even TRY to think of all thats written here whilst in a lesson-it will come to you in time.

when trying to master the hover you have alot going on and for what it's worth, in my opinion you are learning a new motor skill. Unlike some aspects of flying where you absolutely have to understand the theory, to hover a helicopter you do not need to understand the thoery but you do need to have good coordination- not superhuman coordination but good nonetheless.
As a low hours PPL(H) it is not long ago since I was at the same stage you are now and ordinarily I would not consider myself qualified to add to the good advice already posted here, however I think that the idea of feeling the pressure of each control is important. Old beefer is right - but what he (and others) are trying to do is impress upon you the need to "not over control". "Feel" each control - you will feel a pressure particularly in the cyclic (you cannot feel the control properly if you have it in a vice like grip). Move the stick by pushing (smoothly) against the pressure- do not force the stick into a position you think might have the desired effect, this is not like steering a car where you turn the steering wheel x-degrees the car turns x-degrees. You will learn to feel the amount of movement needed in the cyclic to make the machine move the way you want.
Likewise you cannot feel the pressure in the pedals if both feet are pushing/ resting on the them - get your comfortable (light) shoes on --heavy trainers are a definite no-no. and feel what the machine says to you.
And its gently does it with the collective- learn the amount of lever required - it is normally half the movement you think you need-
so there you have it, feel whats going on-- don't force the controls and I said at the start don't try to have it ALL figured out before you step into the machine. Just practice, and then some more practice etc.
And listen to your instuctor. That's what he/she is there for. And unless your instuctor is very new he/she has seen it all before.
Good luck and enjoy!

I'm doing my PPL(H) training at the moment and the advice given here is brilliant!

I have only recently got the hang of hovering (still a little shakey at times though).

I can remember the day it all seemed to click. I had just completed a circuit and was on the FATO. I noticed that as airspeed came to zero, everything was in perfect balance - a perfect hover. I also noticed that I only needed very small inputs to maintain this hover (unlike my previous attempts). My brain was talking to my eyes, hands and feet without me thinking about it!

At this point, the hover taxi up the FATO to go and do another circuit seemed very wierd - I could hardly move forwards (something to do with the huge grin on my face as I realised I was hovering and relaxed!)

SoloUK

RSM, I'm afraid that none of these people are actually telling the truth. Every instructor knows the secret magic hover button. They press it when they take control and release it when they hand control back. There is no other explanation as to why, when you're trying to hover you have a mad three dimensional tango about most of (in my case) Wiltshire and when they're showing you the aircraft could be super glued to a clear pylon.

It's one of the dark secrets of the rotory brotherhood. After a while they wire the button on for you and all's well until you become an instructor.

They'll all deny it. ;)

Damn it! I thought that was one "Instructor Secret" that we had all managed to keep under our hats.
Bet you don't know where we keep the button though..................
Answers on the back of a plain brown envelope please!

Extract from Chickenhawk, a book by Rob Mason.
 

This great chapter describes his first flight lesson with the US Army. I’m sure all helicopter pilots (old and new) will be able to relate to this. I certainly can! Hope this is not too much breach of copyright!...consider it educational e.g. fair use.

Note: Moderators, if you feel this is too bulky, or not appropriate, then let me know...I'll try to link to it instead!

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, first published by Viking-Penguin in 1983, is now in

its 23rd printing. ©1983 by Robert Mason



Chapter 2



I had spent many evenings in my room reviewing the flight controls, what they did, and how I would have to move my hands and feet. I could hear the ground school's aerodynamics instructor in my head. "The names of the controls in a helicopter refer to their effect on the rotating wings and the tail rotor," the voice would say. "The disk formed by the rotor blades is what really flies. The rest of the fuselage simply follows along suspended from the disk by the mast." In my chair I formed a strong mental image of this disk spinning over my head. Then I would start to review the controls. "The collective control stick is located on the left side of the pilot's seat. Pulling it up increases the pitch angle of both main rotor blades at the same time, collectively, causing the disk, and the helicopter, to rise. Lowering the collective reduces the pitch, and the disk descends. The throttle twist grip on the end of the collective stick has to be coordinated with the up and down movements. You must twist in more throttle as you raise the collective, and roll it off as you lower it." I raised and lowered my left hand by my side, twisting it from side to side as I did.

"The cyclic control stick rises vertically from the cockpit floor between the pilot's legs. Moving the cyclic stick in any horizontal direction causes the rotating wings to increase their pitch and move higher on one half of their cycle while feathering on the other half. This cyclic change of pitch causes the disk they form to tilt and move in the same direction as the cyclic stick is pushed." Now, along with my left hand moving up and down and twisting, my right hand moved in small circles above my knees as, in my mind, I flew.

"The force that rotates the main rotor system clockwise as seen from the cockpit also tries to rotate the fuselage under it in the opposite direction. This effect is known as torque. The way it is controlled is with the antitorque rotor, the tail rotor located at the end of the tail boom. When it is spinning, it pushes the tail sideways against the torque. The amount of push, and therefore the direction the nose points, is controlled by pushing the foot pedals. Pushing the left pedal increases the tail rotor pitch, which pushes the tail to the right, against the torque, moving the nose to the left. The right pedal reduces the pitch and allows the torque to move the nose to the right. Because this left-and-right turning requires more and less power, you will have to adjust the throttle accordingly to maintain the proper engine and rotor rpm. Got that?"

I thought I did. I moved my left hand up and down, twisting it, to control the imaginary collective and throttle; my right hand moved in small circles, pretending to control a cyclic; my feet controlled the tail rotor by pumping back and forth. Eventually I could do all these movements simultaneously. These exercises and the fact that I already had a fixed-wing pilot's license gave rise to the fantasy that I would be able to fly a helicopter on the first try.

"Okay. See that tree out there?" The orientation instructor's gravelly voice hissed in my earphones. I was finally getting my chance. The instructor held the H- Hiller trainer in a hover in the middle of a ten-acre field.

"Yes, sir," I said, squeezing the intercom switch on the cyclic stick. "Well, I'm gonna take care of the rest of the controls, and all I want you to do is to keep this bird pointed in the direction of that tree." He jutted his chin forward. I nodded. "You got that?"

"Yes, sir." My senses were overwhelmed by the clamor and bouncing and vibrations of the H-. The blades whirled crazily overhead; parts studied in ground school in static drawings now spun relentlessly and vibrated, powered by the roaring, growling engine behind my back. All the parts wanted to go their own way, but somehow the instructor was controlling them, averaging their various motions into a position three feet above the grass. We floated above the ground, gently rising and falling on an invisible sea.

"Okay, you've got it," my instructor said. I pushed first one and then the other of the spongy pedals, trying to turn the machine while the instructor controlled the cyclic and collective. All I had to do was point the helicopter at the tree. The tree swung wildly one way and then the other.

"You see the tree I'm talking about?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, try to keep us pointed that way, if you don't mind." This instructor, like all the IPs in the primary phase of instruction, was a civilian who'd been in the military. The fact that they were now civilians did not cramp their cynical teaching style.

I concentrated even harder. What could be wrong with me? I already knew how to fly airplanes. I thoroughly understood the theory of controlling helicopters. I knew what the controls did. Why couldn't I keep that goddamn tree in front of us? Swinging back and forth in narrowing arcs, learning to anticipate the mushy response in the pedals, I finally succeeded in keeping the tree in front of us most of the time, plus or minus twenty degrees anyway.

"Not bad."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now that you have got the pedals down nice and good like you do, maybe we ought to show you how this collective-pitch stick works."

"Okay, sir."

"What I'm going to do is to take all the controls again"-the IP put his feet back on the pedals, and the tree immediately popped to a stable position dead ahead of us- "and then let you try your luck with the collective. Just the collective. Try to keep us about this high off the ground. Okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"You got it." This phrase always preceded the transfer of control.

"I've got it." The moment I grabbed the collective stick in my left hand, the helicopter, the same helicopter that had been sitting placidly at three feet, lurched to five feet. It seemed to push itself up. I pushed down too hard to correct. We strained up against the harnesses as the ship dropped. I panicked and over controlled again as the ground rushed up. I pulled up too hard, causing us to pop back up to six or seven feet.

"About three feet would be fine."

"Yes, sir." Sweat dripped off me as I fought to achieve a stable altitude above the ground. It wasn't a matter of just putting the collective in one position and leaving it there; constant corrections had to be made. After a few minutes of yo-yo-ing up and down I was able to keep the machine about where the IP wanted it.

"That's real good. You're a natural, kid."

"Thank you, sir.”

"I've got it." The IP took control of the collective. "One small thing you're going to have to know is that when you pull up with the collective, that takes more power, which causes more torque, which means you have to push a little left pedal to compensate. You have to push a little right pedal as you reduce the collective."

"Yes, sir."

"The next control we're going to try is this here cyclic stick. You don't move this one much, see." I looked at the IP's right hand as it held the cyclic-control grip. It was moving plenty. The top of the cyclic vibrated in agitated harmony with the shaking machine.

"It looks like it's moving a lot to me, sir."

"I didn't say it wasn't moving; I said you don't move it much. There's a difference. The H- is famous for the excessive motion of its cyclic. That's the feedback from all that unbalanced crap spinning around up there. Try it for a while. You got it."

"I got it." I put my hand on the wavering cyclic grip between my knees. I could feel strong mechanical tremors vibrating in many directions within my white-knuckled grasp. The IP had the rest of the controls. The H- held its position for a few seconds and then began drifting off to the left. I pushed the tugging grip to the right to correct. Nothing seemed to happen. We still drifted left. I moved the grip farther to the right. The ship then stopped its leftward drift, but instead of staying stable, like I thought it would, it leaned over to the right and drifted in that direction. It felt like there was no direct control of the machine. I pulled the cyclic back to the left quickly, to correct, but the machine continued to the right. The helicopter was taking on a personality, a stubborn personality. Whoa, I thought to the machine-turned-beast. Whoa, goddamn it. I increased pressure away from its drifting, and once again it halted, seemingly under control, and then drifted off in another direction.

"I would like it better if you kept the helicopter over one spot or another that we both know about, if you don't mind."

"Yes, sir." After a series of hesitating lurches in many different directions, I finally caught on to the control delay in the cyclic. After five minutes of sweaty concentration I was able to keep it within a ten-foot square.

"Well, you got it now, ace."

"Thank you, sir."

"Next thing to do, now that you've got the cyclic down, is to let you try all the controls at once. Think you're up to that, kid?" "Yes, sir." "Okay, you got it." "I got it." The cyclic tugged, the collective pushed, and the pedals slapped my feet, but for a brief moment I was in complete control. I was three feet off the ground hovering in a real helicopter. A grin was forming on my sweaty face. Whoops. The illusion of control ended abruptly. As I concentrated on keeping us over one spot with the cyclic, we climbed. When I pushed the collective back down to correct, I noticed we were drifting backward, fast. I corrected by pushing forward. Now I noticed we were facing ninety degrees away from where we started. I corrected with the pedals. Each control fought me independently. I forgot about having to push the left pedal when I raised the collective. I forgot the cyclic-control lag. We whirled and grumbled in a variety of confusing directions, attitudes and altitudes all at once. There were absolutely too many things to control. The IP, brave man that he was, let the ship lurch and roar and spin all over that field while I pushed the pedals, pumped the collective, and swept the cyclic around, with little effect. I felt like I had a handful of severed reins and a runaway team of horses heading for a cliff. I could not keep the machine anywhere near where I wanted it.

"I got it." The IP took over the controls. The engine and rotor rpm went back to the green. We drifted down from fifteen feet to three, pointed away from the sun and back to the tree, and moved back to the spot where we had started. I felt totally defeated.

"Well, it's true what they say about you all right, ace." "What's that, sir?" "You're a natural." "A natural? Sir, I was all over the field." "Don't worry about it, kid. We'll just keep practicing in smaller and smaller fields."