Can all helicopters hover, and how long does it take to "stop"? Following the accident of Kobe Bryant's helicopter N72EX, there are a few things that puzzle me:


While waiting for clearance to fly close to Burbank airport, the helicopter didn't "stay in place", but actually made all sorts of loops and circles over Glendale:



Source: Flightradar

Does this mean that such an helicopter can't actually "hover", and has to move forward to stay up in the air? There are definitely helicopters which seem to be able to stay in the same location (TV helicopters, police helicopters), so I wonder what is the difference (size? load?). Or is it just "cheaper" to make loops rather than hover?

This question and associated answer seem to indicate that there is actually a limit to the "hovering" capability of helicopters "in the air", though I'm not what the consequences are when you go beyond the limit. Is the helicopter just not able to "stay in the air"? Or does it need to move forward to be able to maintain level flight? How does it actually work, shouldn't "tilting" the helicopter forward reduce the "upwards" force?
At the end of this ill-fated flight, the helicopter makes a left turn until it crashes in the mountain.



Current "expert" analysis (pending NTSB's inquiry) point to an issue with the weather that suddenly got very bad (basically the helicopter being sandwiched between very low ceiling and rising terrain) which made the pilot make a manoeuvre that ended up being a very bad choice.

Could the helicopter not just have "stopped" or at least "slowed down" rather than turn? If it should have been able to stop, how long (in time or distance) would it have taken?
As noted in another answer, all helicopters can hover, but a so-called "high hover" (out of ground effect or especially at operational altitude) is a more difficult maneuver, requiring more power than a ground hover, and being harder to maintain (because reference points are much further away).

Helicopters generate more lift for the same power when in forward flight, and transitioning from forward to hover requires a well-controlled combination of adding power, adjusting collective, and maneuvering cyclic (in both axes) and anti-rotation controls -- which is to say it's much harder than simply flying forward at low speed.  In general, once aloft and flying forward, it's much easier to continue forward flight (it's also safer, since in the case of a failure, autorotation works better if you already have some forward speed).

Hovering on instruments is even more difficult than a high hover -- so if visibility is a problem, it's generally far better to continue forward flight than to attempt a high hover.