Well, I was finally able to convince the wife to allow me to do an introductory flight at the local helo flight school. Showed up at 1pm, and was immediately greeted by their wonderful staff, and met my instructor. Without wasting any time, we walked out to the Robinson R22 that we'd be using. The first thing I noticed was that the doors were off! Hadn't thought about the fact that the Robinson doesn't have any A/C, and that it was rather warm outside! But heck, I was here to fly, and besides, I'd have a seatbelt on!We sat in the helicopter for a bit, with the instructor going over the basic controls, location of levers, etc. Then did a walk-around, and he pointed out various key elements to look for. With that out of the way, he had me get in the right seat, and handed me the checklist card. Performed the preflight check, then started up, and were ready to leave! Lifted about 5 ft up, a little nose-over, up to about 60 kts, then pull back a little on the cyclic, and up you go like in an elevator! (Yes, the instructor is doing all of this, with me on the controls to get a "feel" for them). At about 1600', he handed the cyclic over to me, while he would maintain the collective and pedals. I found out very quickly that real helicopter flight is very humbling! I did manage to keep it within about 200' of our altitude, and flew around the area for a bit. When a real pilot says "fingers only" for moving the cyclic, they're not kidding!!! It was almost as if I would just think about turning or pulling back to gain some altitude, and we'd be already be doing it! Wasn't exactly a smooth ride, but we managed to stay in one direction... We came back to the airport, and came to a hover about 5 feet over the taxiway. He then asked me to take the cyclic, and try to hover, which wasn't too successful. So instead, we just taxied along at about 5 ft. After about 5-10 minutes of this, it clicked... the stick isn't between your legs, but I was trying to hold it in a neutral position as if it was! Once I figured out where the neutral position was, the taxiing became MUCH easier! I was eventually able to go along over the center line without too much trouble (although I did tend to stray towards the taxiway lights several times!) Then, he told me to go ahead and try the pedals. At this point (about 40 minutes into my introduction to flying) I found out that I should focus on the cyclic only for a while, so after one poor attempt at keeping the thing going forward, the instructor took the pedals again. Did one more pattern around the airport at 1500 ft, and brought it in to the helipad. Overall, it was a great experience! Flight Sim 2002 does NO justice to the delicate nature of flying helos (for a better idea, take the springs out of your joystick, and set the sensitivities to their max). By the end of the flight, I was able to hover for about 10-15 seconds, and was able to use the cyclic to keep the thing in a straight line. Hopefully I can convince the wife to let me keep going!Just thought I'd share :)

Congratulations!This is something I hope to do next year (getting married this year, can't afford both!) with the aim of going for my PPL(H). So it's nice to hear of someone elses experience.Good Luck for your future training.Alun

That was great!! I look forward to getting the chance in a couple of months! Was it expensive? Hope the wife lets you continue! Best of luck!Alun, congrats on getting hitched!

There are 2 helicopter flight schools in the Baltimore area. Both of them charge about $200/hr, and they both have "introductory" flights available, which are basically just your first hour of flight training (the other school actually offers a 30 min flight, but it's still at the same hourly rate). One thing to look for is to see if the school has a local practice area, or if you'll have to fly to a practice area. The 2 schools in the area (one at Frederick Airport, which I went to, and the other at Martin State Airport, on the east side of Baltimore) use the same practice area, which is AT Frederick Airport! So people from Baltimore have to fly 20 min or so to get up to the practice area! Of course, the other school may have another practice area that they can use, not entirely sure. It's worth it though!

Cheers! ;(8 :-outta Alun