I got my first heli the end of Oct 08. The helimax CPv3 and can hover it OK now. The cold weather here has slowed my progress.
I also have the RealFlight G3.5 which I can do a lot of things with but not with the real heli. I think as a beginner the biggest difference is the real heli is so much quicker than the sim. It's also very easy to get disoriented with the real heli. After a long time on the sim it seems to get or be predictable. Not so with the real heli.