Finally managed to have an hour in a G2 at the weekend, thought I would share my opinion :-)
Having learnt to fly in a R22 and currently doing a R44 TR I was curious to see how I found the G2. Some initial thoughts:
The aircraft is well laid out, easy access for preflight inspections, I liked the clam shell cowling doors, when opened gives an excellent view of all the important components.
Getting into the G2 is a breeze, and once in the cabin feels very spacious. The center panel is really nice, extremely well thought out, I particularly liked the way the switches are positioned, so on start up your hand goes left to right as you go through the procedure list. Couple this with the modern glass cockpit and it the start up is very easy.
Once we had run all the checks, needle splits etc it was time to see how the G2 flies. As I applied power my FI gave me hint, start feeding in right peddle because you wont believe how much you will need - compared to the R44!!
As the G2 got light on the skids the skid tips lift first, what did surprise a little was just how sensitive it is, so the getting into the hover was a little quicker than I anticipated!!
Once in the hover I did find the G2 very sensitive, both through the pedals and collective, it is extremely easy to pull power past the red line. I was also aware of how much right pedal I had in, way more than the R44 and this would catch me out later in the flight.
On the first circuit my FI said my first approach would probably lead me to be left of where I thought I was going to be and facing 90 degrees to where I wanted to face!
Take off was pretty straight forward, G2 goes through TL nicely and at 95% power and 55 knots it climbs very well, turns are very easy and once we were downwind we trimmed the G2, you can get it to fly hands off if you want - apparently!!
So on my first approach I lined up nicely, noticed the G2 did want to take me left and I needed to feed in a little more right pedal than expected, as I got to around 15-20 feet and was pulling a little power it became apparent why I needed to start feeding in right pedal, I did end up slightly left of the centre line and about 20 degrees nose left of the centre line. Apparently that was pretty good for a first time!
We then spent some time do low level handling, the G2 is extremely responsive and manoeuvrable but I did start to find the cyclic loading quite hard but I put this down to being used to the hydraulic controls in the R44.
Finally we did a couple of autorotations, G2 is very nice in AR, although it does like to bleed airspeed but easily corrected, RRPM was very easy to manage, much better than the R22, probably due to the large engine and rotor RPM gauge on the glass cockpit! Flare and recovery to a hover was all smooth until the governor kicked in! It is way too aggressive, it snatches the rpm very quickly and you simply cannot stop the G2 yawing left at a fair rate, my FI did warn me of this trait so I was already feeding a lot of right pedal but it still yawed left.
So, would I do a type rating in a G2? No I wouldn't, it is a very nice helicopter to fly but having spent so much time in R22's and R44's I don't see what the benefit would be and too be honest I find the R44 a really nice heli to fly, admittedly the G2 is a lot more fun from a handling perspective but at £408 per hour (inc VAT) I would rather go for a turbine rating.