I'll put in my 2 cents worth as well since I'm in the midst of the same kind of
journey as you. I'm age 40 (too old for military) and got the bug at work (TV
Station) when we got a helicopter and I flew as a passenger/photographer. My
brother in law is a professional pilot (Citations) and strongly advised me
(wisely so) that if what I wanted was to fly helicopters, to train to fly them
and not try to transition. There are too many things to unlearn. There is
even a robinson safety notice about accidents caused by fixed wingers doing the
wrong thing. I'm about 30hrs into this and so far its going well, I've gotten
the written out of the way pretty easily, and I don't regret the decision to go
with rotorcraft training. By the way, I'm at a small place with only a
handfull of helicopters and the one on one attention from an instructor with
thousands of hours and an A&P IA license is worth every penny.
Dave
davdirect