Dan,

Do you have throtle hold set up? Throtle hold should be in general, set about 65 to 75 % throtle. Before you do a loop or a roll, you should switch to throtle hold, or sometimes called throtle up. You can still control collective, but the throtle still is up there. You can then pull a bit of negative collective to bring the loop around smooth. I know that this is not totally necessary to do the first loop, but it will make it work much better in the future. If you set the throtle hold and practice it a bit in forward flight, then aerobatics will come easier, atleast in my opinion..,

Good Luck Sir.

WH