3 ms·

With the old mechanical linkage controls (not the newer fly-by-wire controls with a bunch of automatic stabilization) it was typical to have 20 hours before one

With the old mechanical linkage controls (not the newer fly-by-wire controls with a bunch of automatic stabilization) it was typical to have 20 hours before one (i.e. 20-25 year-old flight school student) could safely pick the helicopter up off the ground, hover, and set it back down. There are no younger nor much older military flight school students, so I don't know how age would affect the learning curve. The old simulators were no help with learning to hover because it was all about "feel" and the simulators could never get the feel quite right. I've never tried to pilot a drone so I can't compare with that. I'm still in the military but transitioned to studying, doing, and teaching IT and CS stuff in my late 20s (which is how I ended up here at HN).

trentnelson 2y ago
It’s insane how hard hovering is. I had about 35 hours of fixed wing time, and treated myself to a helicopter lesson for my birthday. Hovering was so humbling! You’d be stable for a few seconds and then oops now we’re suddenly crabbing backwards whilst rolling laterally whilst exacerbating everything with pilot-induced oscillations in every conceivable axis of movement. Having to constantly enter three inputs whenever the external environment changes (ie wind, gust), or any time any one of the three inputs change… it absolutely requires some new neural pathways to be forged! I flew with Patty Wagstaff many years later and even she admitted hovering was so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked).
- warner25 2y ago
  > so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked) Yeah, I think we were all convinced that we were going to wash out of flight school in the first few weeks. Hovering was not something that you could see yourself gradually getting better at, so it felt impossible right up until it wasn't. It really did just "click" one day. Almost two decades later, I still have a vivid memory of the very moment that I realized I had full control of the aircraft when picking it up from the ground. When my buddy and I were telling an instructor pilot one day how we felt (like we'd never be able to hover), he wisely pointed out that the flight school syllabus had a certain number of hours for a reason. It had been refined over the past 50 years, so they knew exactly how many hours were needed, and if things "clicked" for us ahead of that schedule it would mean that time and money were being wasted.

trentnelson 2y ago

It’s insane how hard hovering is. I had about 35 hours of fixed wing time, and treated myself to a helicopter lesson for my birthday. Hovering was so humbling! You’d be stable for a few seconds and then oops now we’re suddenly crabbing backwards whilst rolling laterally whilst exacerbating everything with pilot-induced oscillations in every conceivable axis of movement. Having to constantly enter three inputs whenever the external environment changes (ie wind, gust), or any time any one of the three inputs change… it absolutely requires some new neural pathways to be forged! I flew with Patty Wagstaff many years later and even she admitted hovering was so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked).

warner25 2y ago
> so hard, to the point it looked like she wasn’t going to be able proceed with her rotor license (before it all clicked) Yeah, I think we were all convinced that we were going to wash out of flight school in the first few weeks. Hovering was not something that you could see yourself gradually getting better at, so it felt impossible right up until it wasn't. It really did just "click" one day. Almost two decades later, I still have a vivid memory of the very moment that I realized I had full control of the aircraft when picking it up from the ground. When my buddy and I were telling an instructor pilot one day how we felt (like we'd never be able to hover), he wisely pointed out that the flight school syllabus had a certain number of hours for a reason. It had been refined over the past 50 years, so they knew exactly how many hours were needed, and if things "clicked" for us ahead of that schedule it would mean that time and money were being wasted.