pilotmike
WRONG! WTF? The head / rotor has to produce a force equal to the weight of what's hanging beneath it.
A bit like if you were hanging by your arms on monkey bars and some fat f$&ker grabs hold of your ankles for the ride. Are you seriously telling us your arms, wrists and grip wouldn't feel any difference?
In your analogy, If the monkey bars were accelerating upwards, faster if you are light but slower if you are heavy, then yes, I would feel NO difference because the stress is measured by the torque meter / tot gauge fitted to the bars. Ever gone up in a lift and felt heavier?
This limiting factor (controlled by the pilot) means a slower ROC when heavier, thus up to the SAME measured stress!
Ascend
If you think the forces are the same whether overweight or not, try lifting an empty bucket with a rubber band, then fill it with water and try again. Goose.
Yes the rubber band will stretch if my hand remains static. It will also stretch when you accelerate the hand holding the rubber band with empty bucket upwards!
OvertHawk
He flew the machine that way for four days.
Obviously over temping / torquing and thus overloading the gearbox. Presumably had the other machine flown within the torqe / tot limitations then a slower / lower performance flight would have occurred without overloading the gearbox.