Secret of piloting helos in FS is to fly from Spot plane view. You just don't have enough feed back from the cockpit view to hover and land properly. You can use the dust storm from the rotor wash and your shadow/landing light effect to judge landings
In a real life helo,you have far more visual and "seat of the pants" feed back than you do in FS.
If you really must fly from the cockpit there is a panel out there for a Sikorsky S76 ( FS2000 I think, but it will work in 2004 , The panel not the model) that has a "radio altimeter" .This can help.