I got about 30 minutes of dual in Bell 47 last week. It was a lot of fun.

My Dad and I each flew it, first time in over 30 years since he had flown one. For me too, but my time then didn’t really count much since I was only 10.

I told my wife we need to buy a helicopter now, and she didn’t even hesitate before shooting that idea down.

Robinsons do not have automatic collectives. They have governors and correlators that control the throttle once the throttle is rolled into full or flying position. The ships with autopilots when engaged control the cyclic only. The 44 is an awesome machine!

I have had helicopters since the late 90’s. They are a magic carpet. I use mine 3/4 of the year like my car. I keep it at home and use it for most of my driving over 30 minutes. I have a few places so I land at them, that is a prerequisite before I buy. Also over time if you talk with property owners they don’t care if you land at their business. Today my wife and I left the house, went shooting sporting clays, had lunch, then went whale watching out in the Monterey Bay. Kind of a nice day. You get good at landing and not blowing the hell out of everything. Very easy to do withplanning but not a lot of helicopter pilots are used to doing that. I can land in the tightest quarters and hardly mess up anything. At a lot of places they do not even know we arrived. I watch so many helicopters land and they make such a production I would never want them back at my place.

Are they dangerous? Yes. But a lot can be mitigated. It’s the structural part that always worries me. But I see so many guys load their families in planes at the airport that I would never let my kids into their planes and they luck out.

If you do want to fly helicopters get the old comfortable instructor that has been through the ropes and not the young BSer.

So that's win/win?

I was spoiled. As a young avionics tech I cut my teeth on commercial helicopters. My employer was the largest non-military operator of (then) Hughes 500 helicopters. The fleet was mostly D-models with a couple of C's that were being phased out.

Frequently I was required to do "radio check flights"... which meant "we'll test the radios and the avionics tech will get some stick time". I got to the point where I could hover in a tailwind, so had reasonable proficiency.

Then we got more Bells and some AS350 Astars. Never learned to like the hydraulic boost of the Bells (206B, L) until I flew the mediums, starting with a 204 then the 212's where hydraulic boost was pretty much a life saver.

On my personal rating scale of flying fun, the top 3 forms of flight are gliding, floatplane flying and flying the 500. With unlimited money I'd have an MD530F sitting in the hangar... As it stands, I'm happy to have my Glasair Sportsman and fond memories of my "fling wing" days.

Same experience here. As an avionics tech I got a lot of test flights, and usually got a chance to do some flying. I just wish I had gotten my license back then, as more of it would have stuck with me.

In any model of 206 you either have hydraulics or you do not. If the hydraulics are off the controls are very sloppy and very hard to move. For 80% of pilots a slow run on landing 8-10 mph is the only type of landing as hovering is too hard. Without that "boost" you call it, the collective takes 80-90 lbs of pull to get full travel. Hydraulic controls are hydraulic controls. It comes down to rotor design that determines how sensitive those controls are. The 206 rotor head is much more sensitive to control than the 204-212, both underslung semi-rigid, but totally different. The Huey is very very forgiving.