212 hello! AFCS hardcover testing was sometimes boring and once in awhile “ interesting “ . The guys doing the S-61 certification were having trouble getting th required delay times doing the forward hardover at most forward CG and at max climb. ( this was a year or so prior to me joining ), so the Ch Experimental Pilot ( Byron Graham ) and the Ch Pilot Dmitry ( Jimmy ) Viner went to fly the data point. Byron was beyond good, flying skill-wise and he was flying. Winter, with 3-4 inches of snow on the ground. Took off to the south, threw the hardover in just over the Merritt Pkwy bridge southbound. Byron took the delay time and then some, and when he brought the cyclic back he cut the tail drive. Made the neatest zero thrust landing and there is a widely circulated ( internally ) picture of the tail wheel path thru the snow-dead straight.
Boring? Due to the S-92 AFCS architecture, it required 2000+ hardovers, none of which were particularly attention getting.
With the advent of FBW controls, that sort of failure mode testing will largely, if not totally, be a thing of the past.