Do you have an instrument rating? If you do, and you earned it in SOCAL, your instructor should have taught you this stuff...
Nope, not yet! I just finished my private heli a couple weeks ago and have just started on my commercial. I'm on my 3rd dual flight which is a x-country from Long Beach to SD and since flight following was suggested to me, it opened up a whole can of things I didn't previously know..
That said, my CFI wasn't particularly excited about doing flight following (it was my suggestion to try it) as he said he's rarely had a need for it... I don't know if it's a heli thing or a personal thing, but it sounds like something I'd like to learn so we're going to try it for one leg of our trip. Because this is the last dual that I have before I start soloing, I'm trying to get as much of an understanding of how all this stuff works (while I have him in the seat next to me) before I start soloing and really screw things up
thanks for all of the information!!