Helicopter hovering lesson

Wednesday morning I went for my second lesson on hovering.

It is not physically demanding but it requires more concentration than anything else I can think of. The basic process is to pick a point in the distance and keep the helicopter pointing at it. The foot pedals control the yaw. The rotation. They are akin to the steering wheel in the car. The collective controls power. The throttle controls rpm and the cyclic (joystick) controls direction.

But there is a catch. Everything interacts with everything else. I liken it to a car with massive over steer and that pulls dramatically to the right when you accelerate.

I am very impressed with my instructor - Shane. He seems to sense when my concentration is almost sapped and then gets me to 'fly' rather than hover. We will fly back and forth a few times about 20m off the ground. Then try doing that slowly. Then back to hovering. During the briefing last week, he likened it to trying to sit on one of those big gym balls. Bouncy while you are balanced but once you start to roll off, you roll off in style. The helicopter develops a cushion of air under it (ground effect) that is like the ball and if you roll off you know about it real quick and it is scary. yet he seems to be able to recover us before we become a statistic.

OK so back to the how to.
Looking at the city in the distance and the nose starts to move to the right so its a bit of left pedal. That brings it back but oops too much and I am now pointing left of the city. So its some right pedal. Now all the controls massively interact. Left pedal causes the helicopter to loose height so its up with the collective (leading with the throttle). But there is huge lag and before I know it I have way too much of both collective and throttle and we are heading up. Now more power means yaw to the right and tilt up. So we push forward on the cyclic. Not realising yet that we have pushed too far forward and quick more left pedal needed but we already went too far left and now we are going up so down collective. oops forgot the throttle and the engine's red lining. Back off on the throttle. Glance in which gauge. where is that rpm gauge. Look out again and we are looking toward Ipswich. right pedal to turn right (which incidentally is the opposite of a billy cart). Remember I pushed forward on the cyclic. Well too much too long and the nose is pointed at the ground only 20m below. Cripes pull back pull back and now I can see the sun. Actually that's all I can see. beep beep beep under rev alarm.  Push forward . Strewth more throttle collective down a bit just a bit but oops I know that but too much collective up. Left foot, right foot, Father Abraham.... (this may mean something to those with a religeous background) and now we are pointed at Roachdale, City, Mt Gravatt. Luckily I hear Shane say  "I've got control" and in about 1 second we are hovering stationary 10m off the ground.

Then we try again. This time trying lots of really really small but continual movements of the controls especially the pedals and the cyclic. And about 10min from the end of the lesson, I feel, suddenly in my brain a quantum improvement in stability. Maybe my brain is on board after all.

So lets see.
Left pedal - Turns us left but also decreases RPM and altitude.  Compensate with a tiny amount of throttle and collective.
Right pedal - Turns us right.  RPM increases.  Altitude increases.  Compensate with a tiny amount less throttle and collective.
Cyclic controls direction.