put it properly in its spot At that point, my
instructor told me that he felt I was ready to
solo, but the schools policy required 15 hours of
dual because of insurance. That was back in '04.

Were you training in the US?
I wonder how a flight school can do this! The SFAR 73 requires
non-rotorcraft rated pilots to get 20h of dual instruction prior to solo
a R22.

So the least amount of hours for a rotorcraft helicopter add on would be
30 hours!