Purpose
To develop cyclic control during hovering maneuvers; introduce/reinforce a positive exchange of controls.
Description
- Brief student on positive exchange of controls
- Allow student to develop cyclic control by following a defined ground track
Instructional aids and pre-requisites
- Lesson FC-9 (Hovering 1) is a pre-requisite
- Ground lesson: Downwash (recommended)
Content
- Pre-flight briefing: Positive 3-way exchange of controls
- Position the aircraft into the wind over an even surface, preferably a straight taxiway and/or a distant visual reference
- Clear the area for traffic and obstructions
- From a 5-foot hover, transfer control of the cyclic to the student and allow the student to make an initial forward cyclic input
- Have the student make small fore and aft control inputs to adjust the taxi speed to a brisk walk
- When the student is able to achieve a slow, forward taxi with minimal lateral deviation, have the student make a small aft cyclic input to stop the forward taxi
- Repeat until the student can accelerate to a slow forward taxi and decelerate to a near stop with no rearward movement
Common errors
- Overcontrolling to overcome speed or ground track deviations
- Guide student’s attention to a distant visual reference
- Tension/death grip on cyclic
- Provide frequent breaks
- Encourage finger-tip flying
Completion standards
- Verbalizes positive exchange of controls
- Lateral ground track ±10΄
Teaching considerations
- This is the second step in control isolation while teaching hovering. The forward movement decreases cyclic sensitivity and removes the need to simultaneously focus on both fore/aft and left/right control.
- Since the instructor is controlling altitude, the student develops this sight picture and learns to control the sight picture for a slow forward taxi.
- One variation on this method is to allow the student to decelerate from a forward taxi, momentarily maintain a hover, then return to taxiing.
- Another variation on this method is to allow the student to terminate an approach in a slow hover taxi/hover, but begin the take-off roll after a momentary hover.
Additional practice
- From a slow, forward hover taxi, follow taxiway through left and right turns to develop coordination of cyclic control and pedal inputs
- Once students are comfortable following ground track with the cyclic, transfer collective control to student
Additional resources
- None specified.