IMHO it all depends upon-. .. .What you mean by an auto:. .(Relatively) high level entry glide and power recovery is different from an EOL all the way to the ground.. .. .How good you are:. .Latent talent, skill level, experience, currency (best judged by an independent observer). .. .What you fly:. .Low MR inertia/high MR inertia; very expensive/just fairly expensive; yours/theirs. .. .What the aircraft owner / insurer (and instructor if you have one) thinks:. .As a stude you really ought to limit yourself to what your instructor thinks you should do. He/she is responsible for you and is in the best position to judge your ability. If the owner/insurance company ban solo autos, then there is no choice. Certainly for a while lots of R22s insurance banned autos other than with a QHI as PIC.. .. .I started as a PPL student on pre-governor R22s, and was lucky enough to have a very experienced “super-instructor”. He authorised a couple of sessions of solo autos towards the end of my PPL course. I did not realise until later that this was quite unusual. I tried to build hours quickly and around 6 months after I got my PPL I realised that I was reluctant to do an auto solo, even though I had done significant continuation training. I did a session of autos dual and then went out and did some solo. From then on, I always tried to do solo autos whenever I could. I learnt a little trick from someone of setting myself up for an auto and then entering auto at the next TX on the RT.. .. .During my AFI rating we must have done hundreds of autos. Many EOLs and I had a great boost in confidence from this. Once you are an instructor, then autos become so ordinary and everyday occurrences that they are not noteworthy at all (which is really the ideal situation for every pilot, of course). As an AFI, we were not allowed to do EOLs until we had some instruction under our belts, and were initially limited to more helpful wind/loading conditions.. .. .As a PPL instructor, I never did authorise a stude for solo autos. During continuation training I did selectively authorise solo autos, usually following a dual session where the considerable differences in auto characteristics were briefed before the solo flight. When I started to do CPL instruction, solo autos were routine (but NOT to the ground).. .. .I used to fly autos a lot doing pleasure flying in a single: nice and gentle entries so that the pax were not apprehensive. Now I mainly fly twins. I only enter autos during training or base checks (touch wood).. .. .It is really a question of risk management, if you want to use jargon. Need to balance the risks of the training auto against the risk of screwing up a real one.. .. .Still fly the R22 for fun though. Got checked out by one of my old students the other day, which was an interesting role reversal.