I am not an instructor, but I was in the same position as you, ie. fairly high-time (~5000 hrs) FW pilot when I started helicopter lessons
Took me some 8 hours of dual instruction to solo and these hours were spread over a period of approx. 9 months (not good, I know, ). Maneuvers covered during this time were:
- general handling
- hovering and hover maneuvers (ie. pedal turns, moving sideways, backawrds etc.)
- pickups/touchdowns
- accelerating and decelerating through ETL (quickstops, sort of)
- pattern work
- autorotations
- some off airport landings (but that was more of a bonus, rather than a requirement
)
Surprisingly, I have found hovering easier then expected - generally was able to maintain positive control of the helicopter from the very beginning (though for first 2 hours or so, it required a lot of concentration on my part and resulted in some sore muscles afterwards
).
The harder part for me was to overcome some of the airplane habits, which have been deeply ingrained in me over the years and tended to kick-in especially in the later parts of approach and landing, eg.:
- getting used to higher flare heights (required to maintain tail rotor clearance)
- learning to push on the cyclic at the end of the flare (a big NO in an airplane)
- learning to maintain correct approach path/sight picture. Initially I tended to make my approaches like in an airplane, ie. aiming well below the intended touchdown point, keeping speed far into the approach and then having to perform a mighty flare to stop where I wanted to
However, all in all it was a blast and a great experience - so go for it if you can!
