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Learning to fly in the sandy environment is tough. I heard on some news blurb that we're in the dust storm season. That is especially dangerous for helicopters. Because of their slow speed and vertical take-off/landing, helicopters can get blinded by snow or sand every time they get near the ground. My pilot friend and I have talked about this a lot (he's had a lot of practice in snow) - he says you either have to bite the bullet and try to deal with the fact that you can't see diddlysquat, or to do a rolling landing to try and stay ahead of the cloud that your rotors kick up. I would think dust storms would be bad too, as they probably don't go high enough to get out of them like jets do.