SAS, for some reason I did not receive your email, but have looked in here anyway. Disclaimer is that after the 76A development/FAA certification and some B model maneuverability envelope testing, I didn't have the opportunity to participate much as the machine went thru the various C models/engines.
That said, I was intrigued by the following sentence:
" My understanding SAS is that the system was just removed, I believe that's all they did to our machines, the Blackhawk received the same treatment."
I assume you meant the pitch bias actuator. It was removed from the UH-60's but not because, the pilots couldn't tell if it was working or not ( absolutely true ) but finally the Army looked at the actuator maintenance removals and used that reason to remove it. I can't recall the specifics of the S-76 PBA, so I'll try getting in touch with the man with near perfect recall, Nick Lappos.
Both ships only at the most aft center of gravity and at the highest level flight speed, would not have a slightly positive stick position slope as speed increased or decreased from a collective fixed trim point. So, you trim the ship at 156 or so,(smooth air required) and then gently nudge the stick forward to achieve 166, move the stick as require to achieve a solid data point and take a record. Now get this, one had to move the stck forward ( stable right? ) to go faster, but the trim stick position at 166 could be 1% aft of where you started at 156. UNSTABLE says the FAA and hence the PBA. Same test is done in the slower direction and the results were as I recall, similar. Having an AFCS that provides attitude hold ( in the case of the UH-60 it had both attitude hold and then, after 12 seconds, an airspeed hold loop added itself ) was not recognized as being relevant. This so called static stability regulation derived from the rather ancient fixed wing certification standards, but neither the FAA nor the Army were motivated to modify them in light of more modern basic control systems. The irony of the entire subject is that if one looks at the FAA and military approval for fly by wire aircraft, the whole concept of stick position stability and slope vs speed has gone out the window, for exactly the realization of the irrelevancy due to the factors involved doing the testing as described above! Sorry for the rant. BTW, SAS's CH-47 had a PBA ( under a different name ) early on for exactly the same irrationality.