Interesting to read about the 5 hours required by JAR. In the US, the typical student earns a private pilot certificate with an "airplane single engine land" rating, which requires 3 hours of inst. training. A PPC with a "rotorcraft helicopter" rating doesn't need any inst. time. Both do require 3 hours of night, which includes cross-country flight. After they are rated, they can fly at night w/o an inst. rating.
5 hours of inst. training in a FW seems like it might generate enough confidence to encourage some illegal cloud-busting. I'm not sure about that in the R22, though. I still find it a challenge to hold the airspeed at a tight tolerance for an extended time in visual conditions. Of course, I'm not paying much attention to the panel, instead looking out for other traffic. The point is that I think the Robby would be hard to fly well on the guages. Probably why it's not certificated for flying in actual IMC. Anyway, how do you fly in IMC and refold a chart without 3 or 4 hands? That takes more talent then I was given.
I've flown four R22s and only one had an attitude indicator. I think without an AI, even just trying to do a 180 in cloud might get the ship inverted in a hurry. Are the R22s in UK/Aust./NZ usually equipped with an AI?
I did a half-day of flying at a California school recently that had an R22 with a jam-packed panel. Rather than using the common hoods, this ship had a curtain that pulled around half of the inside of the bubble, and it was held with suction cups. Is this unique, or is that the usual way to set up R22 inst. trainers?