I know this might not mean much to the seasoned, but I did my first controlled hover - 30 secs. in a 10 X 11 ft. room, with a large margin to keep away from the walls, so was probably 4.5 ft square.

I know 30 secs doesn't seem long, but when you are first starting, it's an infinity!!

Also, put in about 2 hrs. on RealFlight - I cannot say enough about a sim - I was getting nowhere fast on my own, finally fired up the sim last weekend (just got my PC set back up after putting in new flooring!) and probably have put a couple hrs on it. (Haven't replaced a part since I did the sim thing before I went back to the real thing!) I fly off the grassland - there is a road with stripes down it, and I take off, hover over to the next stripe, sit it down, the repeat to the next stripe. This really let me get the feel of how to make a machine that begs to fall out of the sky stay airborne.

And scientists say the bumble is aerodynamically unstable and should not be able to fly - what about a heli!!!

First habit I had to get rid of was chopping the throttle when I get into trouble - in a fixed, that's what you did, then just glide down. Darn heli drops like a rock!!!. Now I am learning to fly it out of trouble!