have to say that my one experience of flying heli's in Germany was not a lot of fun. Didn't have a JAA licence at that point, but had a CPL from a decent ICAO state plus currency on a 44. So took an instructor who insisted on flying from the right seat, wouldn't let me touch the controls below 300 ft and then followed through quite heavily when I did have the controls.
Then took control when we flew down a valley because it is "always quite tubulent here" and then much to my surprise didn't back the speed off at all but sat there looking very tense and taking little or no action while i suggested something in the 70's might be better than something in the 120's !
As we fought our way back on the controls I finally got bored and handed her back control only to get a 30 degree yaw as I took my feet of the pedals as i didn't even realsie how much we had been pushing against each other.
Then on further questioning I discovered that she had half the TT that I did and 1/4 of the R44 time... oh and then there was the cost
Not a rant against German aviation, well maybe a bit
but it was a shocker..