Gyrocopter to Helicopter Some Questions
First of I realize that this is a forum for professional pilots but it is also the most active community I have seen related to flying so I hope that you don't mind me asking a few questions even though I am not and have no intention of becoming a professional pilot.
So the story so far...
Recently I finished training for my gyrocopter license and bought myself a Cavalon.
The experience has been a lot of fun and I like the aircraft and will be flying it for at least the next few years I have also developed an interest in light helicopters.
I do have a couple of questions though, primarily related to how difficult they are to fly and how safe they are and some cost related things as well.
Learning to fly the gyrocopter was very straightforward, it took me 10 hours to get a feel for it and after that I lost most of the fear and flying has been quite fun since. Since you're in autorotation the whole time I feel very safe and wind doesn't have much effect on you either like it does in a small plane.
My first question regarding helicopters is safety in case of an engine failure. I have read that on most helicopters you have around 1 second to react after you lose engine power and try to enter autorotation. That seems like an incredibly short time and at this point I can't really imagine seeing the signs of engine failure and reacting to it all within a second. I am sure that training prepares you somewhat for this but still...this is the single biggest concern I have with helicopter flying.
The other thing I'd like to know is how difficult it is to actually learn to fly and how involved day to day flying is.
Compared to learning how to fly a small plane or a gyrocopter how much harder is learning to fly a helicopter ?
The commands do seem to be much more involved.
Also as far as I understand it you can't really take your hands off the commands in a helicopter either.
In a gyrocopter for example once you are in the air you barely need to use the pedals and for most of the flight you can just trim the gyro and it will fly with almost zero effort.
I am asking because if I am taking a 3h trip in a helicopter for example I'd like to know how stressful the flying in itself is.
The last things I'd like to know are related to costs.
I won't ask how much training costs because I know this very much depends on the country.
I am only interested in light and ultra light helicopters, the main reason for this is cost.
I also don't need a helicopter with more than 2 seats, of course having it would be nice but a friend of mine had a 5 seat plane and he says he usually flew with just one passenger and had 3 passengers maybe 5 times in 3 years of owning the plane.
I have looked over a lot of these small helicopters and the only one I dislike outright is the R22 because it's incredibly ugly (in my opinion). I know that sounds stupid but if I am going to be investing that much time and money into this I want to at least like the aircraft.
Thanks in advance for any help!