ORIGINAL: RCKen
ORIGINAL: bkdavy
But they have years of experience under their belts, and they spent a lot of time and money to get there.
This brings up another point. Strictly my opinion, but I think that the learning curve for heli's is a lot steeper than it is for airplanes. When I am teaching somebody to fly an airplane will have them do a "stunt" on their very first flight. I'm talking about a loop, which we all know to be pretty easy to teach to a student. Pull back on the elevator stick, hold it, hold it, hold it, and release. They've done their first trick on their first flight, and they will have an ear to ear grin on their face for days to come. And before everybody picks me apart, I do show them how to properly do a good loop later on in their training, but I just want them to do something on the first flight and this is on of the easiest things to teach to a new pilot.
Now when I've watched heli students it seems like they hover FOREVER before they even start doing other things, most often moving side to side. I'm not saying that learning one is better than the other, or vice versa. I'm just saying that from what I've seen it seems to take longer when learning to fly a heli before you can do any "stuff".
That's my 2 cents worth.
Ken
Of course, I'm speaking from my perspective as a 3 decade heli and fixed wing instructor. As far as the newcomer heli pilot is concerned, learning how to hold a sustained hover is "stuff" enough for the time being, that will put a smile on his face for quite a while. He then can slowly learn whatever he wants to do and doing so within breaking anything gives him or her tons of thrills, although from the a non heli flier's perspective, it's not such a big thing.
What makes learning to fly helis on par with the learning process of fixed wing, is that the heli newbie can learn to fly and not break things mostly on his own, which isn't adviseable during the fixed wing learning process. When I teach people to hover helis, it usually only takes between 30-60 minutes of hands-on instruction, of which he or she can hold a sustained hover or at least a few seconds at a time and with the student having 50-100% control for that time span. After that, he can go totally on his own, thoughout the hovering stages right to forward flight and to 3D.
CCR