Two weeks of a break (holidays and bad weather). Favourite lesson so far.

And I felt THE BEST after this lesson. I felt I had cracked the hover. I was able to maintain a hover for two minutes and get all the hovers that I lost back to a hover. It felt great and I felt on top of the world. Previous hovers have seen me hold the cyclic with a grip of steel, and today I felt much more relaxed.

The weather was gorgeous and very hot, so hot, we had to take both doors off the helicopter to keep cool, which made the R/T challenging.

I felt so comfortable with the hover, that Steve suggested we do some takeoff and landings. As usual, I follow him through on the controls and then he let me do 2 landings and 1 takeoff. Landings are trickier (imho) as you don’t want ANY sideways or backwards movement at the moment you touch down, as this can cause the helicopter to roll over (dynamic rollover), which is bad. But, my efforts were “ok”, bordering on “poor”. Takeoff is easier, but again you don’t want to lurch to the left or right (or front or backward), so you, kind of, have to be hovering before you takeoff. Lots of fun !

Bizarrely, the cheapest lesson so far, for the most fun !