If you are able to get your helicopter up into the air and hold a hover and move it around tail in, then you are doing great. It’s time to change it up a little bit. We are going to do a little side in hover. The thing to remember is when you push the stick forward, the heli is going to pitch the nose down to make it go forward in its orientation. If you are doing this with the nose facing your left, then forward on the cyclic will make the helicopter go left and right cyclic will make the helicopter go forward. This is where the sim will come in really handy. Practice on the sim as much as you can with this step. It will take a little while to learn this step, but after a while something will click and you will have it down pat.
Let’s get started. Put the helicopter on the X and bring it up into a stable hover. Slowly give it some left rudder until the helicopter is at a 45° angle and bring it back to tail in. Now give it some right rudder until it’s at a 45° angle, then bring it back to tail in. How well are you able to keep it up in the air so far while you are moving the rudder stick? Pretty hard huh? Keep it up. You will soon be able to move the helicopter around and keep it in one spot in the air.
Now it’s time to go full side in. Bring it up into a stable hover and give it left rudder until you are 90° and you are looking at the left side of the helicopter. Hold it there in one spot for as long as you can. If you start to lose it, bring the tail back around to tail in and try to gain control. If you don’t think you can bring it back to a stable hover, just drop the throttle as your panic move. Keep doing the left side in until you can hold it for a while and YOU KNOW you’re in control. Now, do right side in the same way. Once you know you can hold the helicopter in a good side in hover, let’s start to move it around a little bit.
Start on the home X, raise the helicopter up into a tail in hover, and give left rudder until you are full left side in. Now, give the helicopter forward cyclic to move the helicopter to YOUR left to the left box. Once over the box, stop the heli into a stable hover then add back cyclic to bring the helicopter to YOUR right back to the home box.
Now give the helicopter right rudder to bring the helicopter to tail in then to full right side in. Now give forward cyclic to move the helicopter to YOUR right and move it to the right box. Stop in a stable hover over the right box, then add backwards cyclic to move the helicopter back to the home box.
Keep doing these exercises until you feel that YOU have a grasp on side in flight in both orientations and both forward and backwards over the boxes.
Now, try some side flight. In each side in orientation, give right and left cyclic to move to the closest and farthest away box. To do this, bring the helicopter up into a hover tail in, then add left cyclic to bring the helicopter left side in. Now, give the heli some right cyclic to move the helicopter away from you to the farthest box. Once there, stop in a stable hover and bring it back to the home box. Then bring it to the closest box to you by adding left cyclic.
Once done with that, give right rudder to bring the helicopter to right side in, give the helicopter left cyclic to move the heli away from you to the farthest out box. Stop in a stable hover, then add right cyclic to bring the heli back to the home box. Now, give right cyclic to bring the helicopter to the closest box, stop in a stable hover, and return to home box with some left cyclic and stop in a stable hover.
Keep moving forward and backwards, right and left until you know that you are in control of the helicopter. This will take practice and you will more than likely have to chop the throttle to save your helicopter more than a few times in the process. But just give it time. After a while, something in your head will just click and it will all make sense. When YOU feel that you are ready, then it's time for a little Nose In Hovering!
