From the Mid-Missouri Radio Control Association
Improving Your Helicopter Flying Skills
by Bob Ackerman
I have watched most of the
helicopter pilots around the area over the past few
years and I have seen great improvements with their
flying skills. And this is great. But I have noticed
that many helicopter pilots are rushing to get into
forward flight and on to aerobatic flight without
working on the basics. With any helicopter, every
flight starts in a hover and ends in a hover
(hopefully). Everything in between doesn’t matter.
To improve your flying skill you need to practice
hovering.
If you watch most helicopter pilots at the field,
they place their helicopter on the ground 20 to 30
feet in front of them, bring the helicopter up to a
stable hover, then quickly turn around and head off
to fly around. For the most part that is okay.
Approach to landing is another story. Many pilots
come in too short or too long and end up hovering
backwards to in front of the pilot, and then
landing. Other pilots enter a high hover in front of
the pilot and then descend backwards to a lower
hover for landing.
I propose to all the helicopter pilots out there to
spend some time on the hover circles just hovering.
There are a couple of skills you need to do while
hovering. Some of these are real basic, but they
lead to harder elements of hovering.
Start in your normal hover with the nose pointed
away from you. Don’t watch the tail; you should
watch the nose because that is the direction the
helicopter normally flies in. Now turn the
helicopter so that it is 45° from you and hold that
hover. Now turn back to the other 45°. Work your way
up to 90° on both sides.
Now here is the hard part. Do you know where you
just placed your helicopter on the ground for the
first takeoff? Do you know where you stand all the
time? Good. From now on you stand at the same spot.
From now on you do not place your helicopter on the
ground at the same spot. Spend your practice time by
practicing taking off and landing at different spots
on the field.
Next, take the two elements mentioned above and
practice that 45 and 90° turn at different places
around the field. Hard, isn’t it? How about changing
the altitude? Instead of five feet in the air, try
the hovering at three feet, or 10 feet. Helicopter
pilots get comfortable with their helicopter in a
hover at a certain altitude and a certain distance
in front of them. The idea here is to move around
and try different locations. The above is all good
but you would be surprised at the number of
helicopter pilots who do not, or have not, practiced
any of the above.
Now we take hovering to the next level. Pick several
points around the field. Hover the helicopter to
that location and stop over the mark. This could be
a clump of grass or an imaginary spot on the ground.
Slowly bring the helicopter straight down and land
on that spot, then back up into a hover. Move to
another point. You will be surprised how really hard
that is at first.
Next make it more difficult. As the helicopter move
from point to point, the helicopter must fly in a
hover motion only. You must keep the helicopter
pointed in the direction of flight. After stopping
at a selected spot, turn the helicopter to face the
new direction of flight and then fly at hovering
flight to the next stopping spot. Yes, I know, it
can be difficult.
If you think about it, you should be able to come up
with dozens of drills to practice your hovering.
Flying side to side for most beginners is the first
thing they learn. Turning the helicopter and flying
in a forward direction is more difficult. Flying
backwards, except when pointed away from you (the
nose that is), can be very difficult. But the more
you practice the better you get. And the more
different types of practice you do, the better you
become.
Another area I would like to discuss is flying
pattern. Many helicopter pilots start from a hover
and head off almost straight up to have some fun.
Helicopter pilots should concentrate on a hover taxi
out onto the runway, just like our fixed-wing
friends do, turn to face down the runway, and fly
out in a pattern.
When done flying around and after doing whatever you
want to do while in forward flight, you should
practice arriving in the pattern. Fly downwind just
like the airplanes, turn onto the runway, and in a
controlled approach descend and slow down so that
the helicopter flies into a hover right in front of
you, Once you have a nice hover in the middle of the
runway, turn the helicopter to the side of the
runway, hover fly to the sideline, turn to face the
runway, and land.
The general point of this entire article is to
practice what you don’t do, and practice what you
normally do but in a little different fashion.
Helicopters are all about the hover, and the
helicopter can hover anywhere on the field. The
problem is most pilots have not practiced hovering
all over the field.
Attitude recognition gained from all that hovering
practice will to become second nature. Knowing how
to correct the attitude of the helicopter from any
attitude will help the pilot to progress with
aerobatics many times faster than relying on sheer
luck, which is what most people do rushing into
forward flight. The hard work up front will pay off
later learning aerobatics because every angle of the
helicopter will be familiar and therefore more easy
to correct, carry-out, or bail from to avoid a
danger.
Q
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