Watching tutorials and having mixed opinions on if the issue lies somewhere in the Technique, the Hardware, or the Helicopter itself

Got out of the G2 as fast as I could, wanted the Airbus H125 for the SAR missions. I've spent most of my time practice with this one, did the 10 SAR missions to unlock Hoist SAR and now I'm really having a hard time doing those missions since you need to maintain hover at around 30ft over a small radius while your NPC rappels down and gets the target. Any kind of instability usually leads to a "crash" due to I'm guessing the hoist wire getting caught on the body of the helicopter. It will take me 5-8 attempts/crashes to successfully get the guy up into the chopper but obviously that shreds my reputation and makes those missions unprofitable. I wont even consider using my own company H125 for the Hoist missions as the crash sends you right back out, at least "crashing" someone else's chopper lets you practice trying again.

I've done a bunch of work in free flight trying to practice hovering at 30ft. Its so hard. 2 ft and hover taxi is actually easier I think due to ground effect? Is downwash the main issue with 30ft hovers? Constantly on the collective up and down, almost as if I'm bouncing on a trampoline while I try and maintain over the circle. Thats the only way I can do it, it looks bad and feels bad, especially compared to the videos on youtube of real pilots doing it SO SMOOTHLY its actually crazy how skilled these guys must be. FWIW I'm not using assists (trying not to anyway; for the hover/hoist missions I've been using the tail rotor assist just to simplify practice for cyclic control). I saw one suggestion on a thread about hardware collectives re: throttle and turning off the governer for more precise collective control but they didn't expand on that.

Is it the controls? Is my hardware bad? Using T-flight HOTAS, I adjusted the sensitivity to -30% which works for take off and landing. I can S rank the regular SAR missions no problem, Landing without getting the Hard Landing ding anymore. I have seen videos of IRL students learning to hover and the cyclic is moving all over constantly to hold it steady, so I'm wondering if the shortness of the stick is an issue with the fine controls. I've seen some set-ups where guys use PVC to extend their flight stick for more fine control. Every single video in the subject says "USE SMALL MOVEMENTS AND TRY NOT TO OVER CORRECT" but when you watch their hands, I am not seeing small movements, due to the length of the cyclic?

Another thought was the H125 itself, when I see IRL videos, there's more modern avionics than what is installed in the default in MSFS24. Are those IRL guys looking at the horizon for feedback or are they able to use the instruments to maintain hover. I assume if IFR conditions or at night, you'd have to be able to maintain hover with instruments alone, so what should I be looking at for that? I can see some Helicopters have "Auto Hover" which seems like cheating but those are not in the base edition, seems to be a military thing. None of the default SAR helicopters have that function (which seems like something you'd want in every chopper, would like to know more about how that works and why its not possible in smaller choppers). Watching IRL pilots in a Cormorant doing SAR hoist rescues at sea on Youtube, they seem to have so many more advantages than I do in MSFS. For one, they have a spotter operating the hoist and giving radio directions to the pilot to guide closer or farther to the zone. They also mention the pilot setting "References" and using those to maintain hover, but you never get an explanation of that - I dont know if that's an avionics thing or a piloting technique. On the big Crane chopper, there's an avionics display that has the circle right below you and shows you where you are in line for the crane - again, it seems crazy to me that that's not also used for the SAR hoist.

Can anyone provide some insight into how to better hover at 30ft for these hoist missions? It took me 20 tries to pass that cargo lift certification so I'm not doing those for a while, but the SAR missions seem doable, fun, and profitable, if I could only master this hovering technique.

7 hours ago, Kristofski said:

Are those IRL guys looking at the horizon for feedback or are they able to use the instruments to maintain hover. I assume if IFR conditions or at night, you'd have to be able to maintain hover with instruments alone, so what should I be looking at for that? I can see some Helicopters have "Auto Hover" which seems like cheating but those are not in the base edition, seems to be a military thing.

There are just so many questions you ask, that I've narrowed into the above quote as a place to start.

First, the controls you use do make a difference, and the longer the cyclic (joystick) and collective (throttle) are, the smaller the input for a greater distance of throw. That being said, any sim helicopter can be flown smoothly no matter what controls you use, but with more practice to understand how little input you actually need.

Second, hovering in general is a challenge and becomes more difficult as you increase your altitude due to lack of visual references. In both real and sim, I will practice a stabilized no drift hover starting at 5' and increasing in 5' increments of height, to see if I can maintain that hover for 3-5 minutes without any appreciable drift. Good practice, and builds up your visual cues as you gain experience at each 5' level. Don't jump right to 30' and expect a stabilized hover. You will have to develop an outside scan that is not too close, nor too far from the helo. But the wider the view, the better. So much more to be added here that hovering would need a full article in and of itself.

Third, You can NOT hover on instruments alone, without very specialized Doppler hover equipment/gauge combined with a radar altimeter.

Forth, there is generally NO AUTO HOVER in real aviation. The only exception I'm aware of is the H-145 which has an extremely sophisticated autopilot system with hover mode.

But, back to your need, to fly a stabilized hover at 30', practice, practice, and then practice some more. Frustration along the way is a guarantee.

Edited Friday at 11:54 PM3 days by PhrogPhlyer

Thanks for the reply - definitely just expressing my frustration at the leap in difficulty from flying, take off and landing a helicopter, which I can do no problem now, to hovering stable above a circle the size of the parking stall. I think too that the hoist missions have added difficulty taking place mostly over the water where you have almost no references apart from the horizon.

Spent several hours practicing in the H125 and the EC135 on the weekend. I appreciated that the EC135 had more engine output, so the hover point on the collective/ HOTAS throttle was below that mid-point indent, which I found made hovering easier. I also re-bound the throttle rocker axis from a duplicate of rudder to a collective duplicate. In the H125, Hover is just 1 notch, 1mm ABOVE the indent and it can be so hard to keep it steady while constantly in and out of that indent. The rocker lets me engage the indent, then very lightly press up or down with my finger tips to float up and down in the hover. Feels bad :(

I was all ready to buy the EC135 for my company too only to discover it doesn't have a hoist option, and so cannot be used for career mode missions other than regular SAR. Seems like only the Airbus and the Huey have the SAR hoist.

I found a good exercise at CYTZ there's a circle that's the right size near a wind sock, and a red and white tower that gives you good increments to reference. Mixed results with wind on or off. In some ways, its easier to hover if you match the natural lateral translation against the wind vs no wind. Alt+5 is interesting to see, but I don't know how helpful it is to constantly try and visualize.