To: John T
Are you saying that a blade that weighs about 262 pounds when spun up to about 250 rpm and has a centrifugal loading of 72,000 pounds will not rotate in a pure radial plane relative to the root attachment due to the gravitational effect of the blade weight?
To: Pielander
You stated,” The blades would only 'hang back due to inertia' while the blades were accelerating. After they had reached a constant rotational velocity, the tangential effect of inertia would be nil. They may well hang back due to air resistance, and indeed, they are pivoted at the base to allow them to do that”.
Boiling down three pages of the Sikorsky Helicopter theory of flight Handbook it says that you are right. It states that the only time that the blades would rotate in a pure radial position is if the blades were rotating in a vacuum, which covers my comment about the moon. The blades when rotating in an air mass will hang back behind the radial line due to drag of various types. The leading and lagging takes place behind the radial line and the only time the blades move forward of the radial line is during autorotation or when the rotor brake is applied which I mentioned in a previous post
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The Cat