hi there,
i am high time on robbies and zero time on other piston types, therefore I am biased by default, anyhow I was reading in helicopter world ages ago about training in the USA, and they featured HAI (i think) and quoted the guy as saying when new peeps come through the door, if they are basically leisure pilots they would normally expect to do ab-initio on the 269/300, but if they were looking for a commercial career then they would march them straight to the R22, on the grounds that it is a bit more demanding but also more appropiate given that they want to go all the way.
while we are on the subject of robbies i hear this statement all the time "if you can fly a R22 you can fly anything" well yes you can i guess, but i would say that landing a super puma on a turbulent helideck is way harder than landing a robbie in strong winds!
anyone care to add aspects of flying other types that are harder than the equivalent manoever in an R22?