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So I recently have been reading the Fly rules and discovering that no one I've ever played with has run them right. I understand most of it fine, but my questions are about hovering.
#1 What happens when you fail a hover check? I assume you start to fall, but how far do you fall in a turn?
#2 Is it a move action to hover in place?
There are a lot of answers in this helpful thread here about failing Fly checks.
1) Hover is considered a "special maneuver" with flying, outside of the standard maneuvers you can get without making a check. If you fail to hover, you can still do the standard flight (move a distance greater than half your speed) and not fall.
2) From the Fly skill description:
Action: None. A Fly check doesn't require an action; it is made as part of another action or as a reaction to a situation.
#1 I can't find an exact quote, in practice if someone wants to hover this turn, they do a fly check, if they fail, they must land or move at least half their movement in forward flight. If they don't or can't they crash into the ground.
#1a As for how far you fall a round, I typically see 500 ft. the first round and 1200 ft per round after. I won't go into the physics/math to show where the numbers are from. Originally came from the 3.5 D&D FAQ and it served well enough.
#2 Flying is no action, it's part of another action which could be any full round action. Think of it like a acrobatics(balance) check. You don't have to use a specific action, you only have to succeed at the check. If you were balancing and failed you would fall prone, but it would not cost you any type of action.