military helicopter pilots have to be the bravest people in the world. sheesh these things are constantly falling out of the sky!
It's the stuff of freedom, you know!
With all best wishes, RHLIII
As a plaque I have in my office reads:
"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by an incompetent pilot, it will fly.
A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to." - Harry Reasoner
I have 1,100 hours on the UH-1H "Huey" and 500+ on the UH-60A Blackhawk befor moving on to a cargo airplane. The last paragraph sums it up quite well.
Just one correction: There may be not such a thing as a gliding helicopter but there are such things as autororating helicopters. It's just that some autorotate better than the others.