Don't pay in advance. Always pay promptly after your lesson. Have some money saved up in YOUR bank account to keep you training consistently. A school you want to be doing good business with does not need money up front. I tried both the R22, and the SW300. I preferred the SW300, and that's what I trained in. With that done, transition to an MD500 was very easy, and the type endorsement was only a couple of hours. As others have mentioned, full on autorotations were not a part of my training at all. I was trained to get close to the ground, from which a power off landing would likely be successful, while reducing training risk.