boscomantico wrote:
Zero interest in helicopters.The are loud, ugly, slow and expensive.
I have flown left front seat in a H125 once and the visibility is just amazing. Unfortunately they are quite slow and expensive etc. but I think they are amazing VFR sight seeing aircraft. Also the helo pilots seem to fly much closer to terrain in the mountains than we fixed wing pilots would ever dare. We more or less flew up a ski slope and I could see so many things not visible from a fixed wing.
Sebastian_G wrote:
I have flown left front seat in a H125 once and the visibility is just amazing. Unfortunately they are quite slow and expensive etc. but I think they are amazing VFR sight seeing aircraft.
Very true, though there’s at least one fixed-wing aircraft with helicopter visibility, Vulcanair (Partenavia) P.68 Observer (sorry for thread hijack):
Don’t forget the Edgley EA7. Its cabin is not much different from the cabin of a Bell 47, though a lot larger.
@boscomantico I felt that way about rotary wing until I had the chance to fly in @carlmeek’s Gazelle. Absolutely amazing machine and totally incomparable to any other flying experience I’ve ever had.
Interestingly, all the ex military helicopter people I’ve spoken to have no interest in Robinsons etc… the turbine helicopter world is totally different.
A Hughes 500 owning friend once took me for a two hour + ride from sea to desert and back, with me attempting to fly much of the way 
That was really very nice of him, and it was a great flight. In retrospect however the experience struck me as ‘industrial’, feeling more like operating a machine tool than being buoyed into the air and ‘magically’ floating along. Not my thing I found, but my friend loved it.
The more I fly and own aircraft, the more I find I like simplicity and elegance versus lots of machinery and/or electronics. I also dislike the smell of kerosene in any vehicle.
Something else that is different to fixed-wing, is the rotary community have is this great app called Helipaddy. You can search for private sites, hotels or restaurants either nearby, or in a specific area to land at. You can click to call them and click to load them into Skydemon right off your phone. The choice of destinations within 1hr of where our helicopter will live is huge, so potentially a 1hr flight has a lot more value for entertaining or keeping spouses engaged. Example 58nm flight to the Lake District, a screenshot of somewhere land below:
Just something I found different and compelling. If you weren’t already a settled family man, the mind boggles at the potential uses of such information and access to a helicopter.
I was tempted, dreaming that one can land where they wish, I was looking yo get PPL(H) to be able to land at Intercontinental Hotel O2 near Greenwich or Issy-Les-Moulineaux near Paris, or Ascot SW of London
I decided to pay someone to do it, getting permissions is not as obvious as it seems, at best it’s quick pick up & drop or half-day, surely not for one week or full weekend !
It may work very well in the wild but Cub/Maule or ULM/Microlight should do as well 
WilliamF wrote:
so potentially a 1hr flight has a lot more value for entertaining or keeping spouses engaged
One major argument in favour of flying an eggbeater
As far as utility is concerned, I find that most people and places worth visiting in Northern Britain have at least an adjacent 10 acre field suitable for a bushplane.
So I just fly a single-seat helicopter (well, two actually) for the huge fun of it. It really is a fabulous beach toy and at 15 litres of UL91 per hour it practically pays me to play with it.
