Helicopter movement at the hover should be refined and procedural — but it can be as undisciplined as a bumper car at the county fair. At the hover, the helicopter is omni-directional and free to move forward, rearward or sideways.
Sideways and rearward hovering are good training exercises for control development, but, in the commercial world, hover taxiing to a new position to the side or behind would be more safely accomplished by first turning and facing the direction of travel and then taxiing forward. Three specific exercises address hovering movements in a formal way.
To turn around the mast (“about the mast” for our British friends!), hold the helicopter in position over the ground and manipulate the tail rotor pedals to begin rotating the airframe. The circular rotation is centered below the rotor system, and the tail rotor and main rotor tips follow the circumference of a circle. Picture a model helicopter placed at the center of a turntable.
To turn around the nose, face a target ahead and use the cyclic to begin moving to the side. The helicopter will tend to creep forward, so apply aft cyclic as necessary to remain at a fixed distance from the center point ahead. The front and rear of the helicopter describe circles with different length diameters. Picture the toy helicopter placed at the edge of the turntable facing the center. Turn the toy helicopter 180 degrees with the tail facing the center and you have a turn around the tail. Partial turns around the mast, nose and tail can be used to clear the hovering helicopter through and past ground obstructions over rough ground.
A pilot friend of mine told me recently about a checkout he received at a training facility on a helicopter type new to him. The helicopter was parked beside and parallel to a building, and to move away he chose to turn partially around the tail by easing the front of the helicopter sideways in an arc with the tail behind remaining stationary. The check pilot was not happy with this maneuver because he felt he main rotor blades and or the skid gear moving sideways could strike something not easily seen.
What the check pilot had in mind was a turn around the mast or pedal turn. It would be important to visually clear the path the tail rotor would take before turning, but the main rotor would be less at risk of a strike and the skid gear would rotate but remain in position. My pilot friend felt that a pedal turn would mean swinging the tail rotor closer to the building and exposing it to the possibility of contact, whereas a turn around the tail would safeguard the tail rotor.
The reasoning both pilots used is credible and they were both concerned with obstacle clearance. The turn around the tail pilot probably had a considerable amount of experience in obstacle-infested unprepared terrain. With a wide field of peripheral vision the path the main rotor and skid gear are about to take can be visually cleared to the side as you turn around the tail. The pedal turn pilot possibly flew in a more urban setting where close tail rotor proximity to objects was not as often a concern.
Tail rotor strikes in confined areas happen more often than they should, and many company operations manuals state that their pilots must turn around the tail while maneuvering in a confined area. A tail rotor strike is very unlikely if the tail rotor is facing the center of the area during a turn. Moving the main rotors and the skid gear across the ground in an arc in a turn around the tail requires a great deal of pilot concentration and attention outside when hazards and obstructions are present below and beside the helicopter. You should be mentally fatigued after a flying day replete with many confined area landings.
Many learning pilots have the impression that charter operators in remote areas are looking for pilots proficient at confined area work, and even though they are, most operators are looking for pilots with good close to the ground skills, such as well controlled takeoffs to and landings from the hover, hovering and hover taxiing. These are also the essential prerequisites to specialized operations such as vertical reference long line, and precision approaches to log pads or platforms.
With very seasoned and experienced customers on board, you shouldn’t be surprised if you get the raised eyebrow the next time you try to write off a wobbly takeoff. It is obvious that these customers are used to flying with pilots who take good close-to-the-ground work very seriously. It’s all about making an effort in the little things.