PRECISE and carefree handling and control are the qualities to be achieved in future helicopter designs and a great deal of study has been devoted to ways of achieving them. Recent conferences and reports of work undertaken on behalf of the civil and military authorities have produced evolving techniques and in some cases revolutionary ones in the ever‐more demanding environment of safe and more efficient rotary‐wing operations. It has been emphasised recently that the time is ripe for radical new approaches in the search for a reduction in the number of accidents and incidents caused by pilot error.