Globo, you wrote: “In some respects there is no merit in engineering this out, as this leads to mechanical overcomplication of what is an already complicated device. “
Amen. Fly the Crane from say 15 to 60 KIAS trim it out and see where the nose is pointing. Suffice to say, SA never repeated the lateral shaft tilt idea.
Also, re my somewhat snarky comment re the Gnomes, here is some reality: when I joined SA in 1966, I was shortly joined in a small cubical by a former USMC pilot back from flying S-58’s in Vietnam. He told me that they were changing engines at 300 hours and did not fly single ship missions with the aircraft due to the engine situation. Strong case for the Gnome addition.