The stock Piccolo FP has excessive play in the control mechanism. Specifically, the swashplate wobbles around too much. There are two mods which are required to fix this: the ball-in-swash mod and the Chris Rigoleth antirotation strap. These will make your initial hover attempts somewhat easier.

The older FP Piccolo kits had a anti-rotation link (67366) with only a single hinge rather than the newer double hinges. If you receive a one of these single hinge anti-rotation links, they do not work well, and I recommend you replace it with a newer double-hinge one.