How to hover a helicopter : Capt. White talks us through the ups and downs of learning to hover!

I was taught to hover from around lesson three. I had already gained good attitude control in forward flight which isn’t essential but certainly does help. The lesson, as always, started in the classroom with a briefing on the primary and secondary effects of controls in the hover, where to look whilst hovering and how we are going to put all this into practice once in the helicopter i.e. one control at a time to begin with. It felt amazing as my instructor started to hand over control, I found the cyclic and collective quite intuitive, but the pedals were a little trickier and just like many students I found I was desperate to use right to yaw left and vice versa instead of right to yaw right etc. Within a lesson or two I could hover on all of the controls, not perfect by any means but adequately enough to move on to the next lesson, take-offs and landings!

23 years on, I am using more or less the same strategy when teaching my students to hover. Not much has changed since then but I do place more emphasis on threat and error management during the briefing and like to make sure students have an understanding of the aircraft’s characteristics and limitations.

One of the things I enjoy most as an instructor is finding out how best to teach each of our students as everyone learns in a different way. Some students respond best to lots of praise and positive reinforcement whereas occasionally, some respond better to more military style of tutoring. I pay particular attention in the beginning to how a student feels i.e. as relaxed as possible and I keep reminding them to to stay relaxed as that is one of the keys to hovering. The next most important thing is to be looking in the right place ie outside and in particular towards the horizon as that’s the best place to look for attitude control with the cyclic, a fixed point on the horizon for yaw control, approx thirty feet in front to spot drift and occasionally a quick glance down for height. Then, in time, your focus will be in the cockpit, monitoring the helicopters performance and eventually around you so you can become more situationally aware of your surroundings.

Now how to handle the controls. Just a gentle grip on the cyclic, no stirring please and use small precise inputs. The collective is again gently does it as you will also be holding the throttle. For now the governor will be taking care of the throttle for you but you will feel a slight twisting back and forth. As for the pedals light and delicate, we’re not crushing grapes! Remember right pedal yaws right and left yaws left… don’t laugh, seems so obvious I would say it’s the top hovering hiccup, mine included. No need for letters on your shoes required after a few goes it becomes second nature. Needless to say you have to adjust your inputs for different helis. Larger aircraft are often more stable and require less adjustments during the hover and the smaller aircraft for example the R22 can be a little more ‘flighty’ and therefore require a little more attention.

Wearing the right sort of clothing is also very important. You don’t want to be in bulky, hot, tight uncomfortable clothing and ideally your shoes should have a thin flat sole to give you more ‘feel’ for the pedals. Plenty of ventilation in the cockpit and some heat on if its chilly, but not too much. Sunglasses is a topic that crops up on a regular basis. To wear or not to wear? And if so, what type? The answer is simple. If you struggle in bright light, always take you sunglasses with you. Try to avoid polarised as some of our helicopters (our Cabri G2’s for instance) have polarised screens so they have a habit of going black when viewed with polarised glasses on. Sunglasses with thin arms are best so they don’t interfere with the headset ear cushions allowing noise to leak in. I have been using Bigatmo sunglasses supplied by Pooleys for some time now and have clearly been designed with the pilot in mind. But previously I have found Aviators (Raybans) equally good for comfort. They have clearly been designed with the pilot in mind.

Hovering eventually becomes a natural process similar to riding a bike eventually you don’t even notice all the tiny shifts of balance, speed and direction you make. It’s always worth reminding yourself how to make hovering easier as this will allow you to have a greater capacity to carry out other functions whilst hovering…. And don’t forget to smile – you’re flying, enjoy it!

If you are new to flying and struggling with hovering, would like to perfect your technique or have any questions about teaching this skill then please get in touch.