User Guide

the centerline), you as pilot have an excellent field of view to either side. Your forward view
is restricted by the gunner’s cockpit and the length of the nose in front of you (more of a
problem in the hover or the flare than in forward flight), and your view behind is obstructed
to either side by engine pods, stub wings and armament and totally obscured directly
behind by the solid bulk of the fuselage. You have no view at all straight down, so whenever
you’re descending vertically you are effectively exploring the unknown, tail-end first. It’s a
lot like trying to sit down in the dark in an area infested with scorpions.
You need to touch down at a chosen point on a reasonably smooth, level surface,
preferably without striking anything with your main or tail rotors. A combat helicopter’s main
rotor system is amazingly robust – it’s designed to support tons of helicopter through violent
maneuvers and shrug off cannon shells. If you’re prepared to explain the damage to your
maintenance crew and superior officers you can chop down small trees with it and still fly
away. The tail rotor, however, is smaller and inevitably more delicate. It also projects further
beyond the main rotor disc than any other part of the helicopter, and it’s right in the middle
of your blind spot behind.
Though you can largely compensate for the restricted view by doing pedal turns, and by
picking visual reference points on either side, descending vertically from a high hover is
usually far more trouble than it’s worth [see also page 6.20 – Vortex Ring Effect]. The
normal helicopter landing approach is very much like a fixed-wing aircraft’s, until you reach
the final stages.
GROUND SCHOOL
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Diagram 6.8: Coordinating cyclic and collective in the flare