...on quite a momentous day in my quest to learn to fly: first solo flight!
...although maybe not as glorious as it sounds. Out of 1.6 hours flying today, only 30 minutes were in solo flight, only 2m off the ground, staying within a 20m X 20m box. I spent 30 minutes continuously picking up, setting down, and hovering. In a helicopter as small as this, flying without a second person on board changes the handling of the aircraft dramatically: about 15% of the total weight is suddenly gone, and the center-of-mass shifts significantly to the rear. I was surprised how different it was flying in this configuration. But I made definite improvements in smoothness over the 30 minutes of solo flight.