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Hovering a Helicopter is Hilariously Hard - Smarter Every Day 145

SmarterEveryDay2 HN recommenders · 2017–2021
6.9M views · demo · evergreen · Uploaded 2015-11-20

Smarter Every Day host Destin Sandlin tries to hover a helicopter and finds it very hard. The video shows how the constant coordinated corrections across several control axes feel at first and how learning makes them automatic.

HN uses it as a vivid example of tacit knowledge and skill acquisition, where the brain eventually abstracts away the complexity.

Everyday physics & science demosAviation & aerospace engineeringPsychology & human behavior

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3 comments from Hacker News

@hexane3602017 · in “An 85-year old millionaire hides $1M treasure in the Rocky Mountains (2016)”

[VIDEO] Here's a pretty good one. It appears to be constant 3-axis compensation, although he alludes to newer helicopters that have made it much easier.

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@pdkl952018 · in “What to Do After Finding Hot Connectors on Overhead Power Lines (2017) [video]”

> Those helicopter pilots must have a very steady hand. Piloting a helicopter in general requires an incredibly steady hand on unintuitive controls that interact with each other in ways that are difficult to predict[1]. Being able to do that with high precision, a disturbingly small margin of error, and fatal consequences for almost any error is basically a superpower. [1] SmarterEveryDay has an interesting video[2] about learning to hover a helicopter, which apparently requires trying to hover (badly) until the brain learns how to abstract away all of the complexity. [2] [VIDEO]

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@routerl2021 · in “Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions – outline (2013)”

Thanks for pointing this out. It should be said, however, that Kuhn did cite Polanyi pretty extensively. Related: Destin, at the Smarter Every Day YouTube channel, has been kind of sliding into the same distinction Polanyi outlined, between "tacit knowledge" and explicit knowledge. Destin would label those "understanding" and "knowledge", respectively, but he has a lot of neat demonstrations of this distinction, e.g. riding a backwards bicycle[0], or hovering a helicopter[1]. [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]

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