cafesolo - You have me puzzled.! You appeared to be referring to the Whirly in the piece from "Granted no trimmers ...", but that refers to the Sycamore - my time on that goes back to Aden in the mid 50s !
Similarly little trouble with the Gnome save for one wet winching in Holyhead harbour with John Dixon (sp?) when there was a slight change of noise on the run-in and, once the lift was complete, John announced that he had had to complete the pickup 'computer out'..
Re the lack of trim on the Whirlwind, Keith "Punch-up" Panter" (as he was known) disliked the lack of 'feel' on the cyclic, so he used to wind the fore and aft and lateral frictions up to maximum when he was on shift - so he could "feel what was going on". This was at Thorney and the 'Trappers' came on their annual jaunt and their Boss decided to do some CT. The take-off and departure were 'unusual' as the Boss found out about the trims, the 'hard way'. This tale was passed on to me much later, as Keith had moved on before I was posted in.