Hmutt,
It was not my intent to be unfair, just to call it as I see it. Others have and will come to different conclusions. What tipped the balance for me was the FAA special safety report published in the mid 90's. This report examined around fifty fatal accidents which had occurred to that time for which there was no clear cause. The accident scenarios have a remarkable similarity: low time student (0-4 hours) flying with instructor crash killing both. The report attributed the cause to a loss of main rotor control resulting from an abrupt, unanticipated cyclic input by the student. Within 2 revolutions, the main rotor flaps down and chops off the tail boom, and this happens faster than the instructor can respond. Some will respond, "Dont make abrupt cyclic inputs," and this is excellent advice, but the real world is a bit more complicated.
The R22 is in many ways a brilliant design. As far as I can tell, a very small per centage of accidents are due to mechanical failure. However, in the interest of performance and cost, it is also a somewhat primitive design, which by necessity asks more of the pilot. I'd rather have more margin for error while I am learning, and then accept a smaller margin when I am more proficient. This is a tradeoff which each who puts his ass on the line needs top decide for himself.
The RHC Safety Course on DVD is actually quite valuable IMO - not as good as going to the factory in person, but better than not having this exposure. (Obviously, the DVD covers only the ground schooll portion of the course.) I have flown with a few R22 instructors (all in the category of "students teaching students," i.e. just a few hundred TT in helicopters) and none covered most of this material with me. I recommend that anyone planning to fly the R22 obtain this DVD, or better yet, do the course in CA. Ther is also a DVD aviavable on autorotations in the R22 which I found useful - dont have a link, but its easy to find on the web.
EN 48