I like flying the 135 a lot but I am regularly mystified by the absolutely virulently negative attitude some peolple have towards the 902. The only thing they seem have in common is that they aren't type rated on it. (it can't, of course, because some have a vested interest in pushing Eurocopter products...oh no
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This is a great comment and I have run into it many times with the Explorer and the NOTAR in general. When I was hired at MD a very good friend of mine told me how poor the NOTAR was, how I was going to hate flying helicopters with NOTAR, and how much of a mistake I probably made- just a terrible idea and system all-in-all. Well the first thing when I went to work was a 520N transition. It was different. It wasn't better nor worse than tail-rotor machines I had flown, but it was different. Just like a 206 is different than a 500 or a 120. I found no great problems with it and with a 5 hour transition at the factory I was comfortable with it and saw no great nor even small problems.
I called my friend and told him what I thought and asked him how much time he had in NOTAR machines and why he disliked the system so much. His reply was that he had never flown one, that was just what he had heard. I ran across this many times in my 8 years at MD and still heard it today. From 99 to 2005, much of that was diven by friendly marketeers from a major European helicopter manufacturer. I have lots of 1 on 1 conversations to verify that.