I’ve recently started learning to fly in Sydney, Australia. I’m reasonably new to the helicopter world, but I also think it’s a little strange to have been shown an auto as part of a trial intro flight. I’d be interested what other folks TIFs have consisted of...but maybe that’s going off-topic.
Having said that, my TIF consisted of flying straight and level, a few turns, a few climbs and descents. I was in control of each of the controls individually (never all together). Unfortunately this lulled me into a false sense of security, and just as I was beginning to think I was a dab hand at this helicopter flying business, the instructor took us down and let me have a go hovering. I was hoping to be Ok, but I hadn’t quite grasped how important visual cues and perspective were when learning to hover (and equally the delay from control input to control response in an R22…oh, did that cause some fun..). However, the hovering was without the best bit and I started a CPL(H) course five months later.
Ready2Fly: I’m on lesson 14 right now and am enjoying myself immensely – I know you will too. To answer the original questions (what would you consider in terms of the school before signing a contract…etc.), I considered the following: cost, location, what type of machine the school trained in, and what kind of impression the various schools I visited left on me.
I concluded that cost was more or less the same across all 3 schools I went to. Location was quite a limiting factor, but fortunately I had 3 to choose from (all within Sydney). I was happy to learn on the R22 and still have no regrets, and the school I visited was friendly, open and left me with an all round ‘relaxed’ feeling. This latter point was extremely important to me.
Prior to starting, I also had concerns about being taught by various instructors (all of whom were at various levels of flying hours). However, as soon as I started, I found pretty quickly that an advantage of being trained by different instructors was that you got as many different perspectives/criticisms on flying technique. In addition to this, I haven’t noticed any particular difference in ‘quality’, which goes to back up what someone said earlier in this thread that an instructor is an instructor…if you see what I mean. Maybe I'm rambling.
Sorry for the long post…my first to this group and I’m glad to get off the mark…