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Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

Okay I've actually flown helicopters, and it's not that hard. Harder than fixed-wing, but much easier than standing on a basketball.

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If I read your parent correctly, you need to compare standing on a basketball, not with flying a helicopter, but with precision hovering one.

Fair enough. Hovering is definitely harder than forward motion, because among other things the tail boom acts as a weathervane during forward motion. But hovering is still easier than standing on a basketball. I've done the former, and I can't imagine even trying to do the latter.

Are you rated for the Basketball? How many hours have you logged on the basketball? /s

I got my "single basketball on grass" rating a couple of years ago, and have been meaning to schedule a checkride for my "single basketball on hardcourt" endorsement for a long time, but honestly I don't know when I'd ever use it.

Exactly. Flying a moving helicopter is not hard. A helicopter is much more stable while moving forward than while hovering. (And for the record, I am mainly a fixed wing pilot but I have also flown a helicopter.)

It's a common misconception that learning to stand on a ball is difficult to do, you can actually learn all the basics in a few hours. Most of the hours you need for your endorsement is spent on things like balance recovery, finding a safe place to fall, and interacting with other ball-standers. Keeping your balance becomes second nature after 60 hours or so.

I would wager that it's easier to hover a helicopter than a fixed wing aircraft.

:) It can be done! (If your point of reference is the ground.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vP13XPMNfc

I have not actually flown a helicopter, but every time I tried one in MS Flight Simulator, I promptly lost my balance, flipped over and crashed directly after taking off.

However, it may be that using some other form of control than a mouse works better.

I've bought a joystick (some inexpensive HOTAS set actually [1]) specifically for playing helicopter sims. It makes a world of a difference. I mean, still hard, but suddenly approachable at all and fun. And notably, all the hand movements you do must be super tiny. According to youtube, that's how it is on real helis too.

[1] namely, Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X, IIRC

The real thing is easier than a simulator. The sensory inputs that come from your butt are invaluable and impossible to reproduce in a desktop simulator.

Plus you're very highly-motivated to stay alive.

> I've actually flown helicopters, and it's not that hard.

When all helicopters are quad, tailless, designs flying will be much easier.

Good point. However big quads can't work exactly like little quads. They'll still need collective pitch, which is mechanically more complicated than just throttling rotor power the way little quads do it. Big rotors cannot change RPM quick enough to keep the thing stable. (I expect people are trying, but it's gonna take huge power fluxes to make it work. Easier just to build collective controls.)

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