Brother Dixson,
My unit lost an aircraft and crew in an accident....where the aircraft pitched up and nearly went inverted on short final to an LZ while carrying a sling load of 105 Howitzer Ammo.
It landed almost flat and rolled onto one side and immediately burst into flames....and all but the cockpit section and dense metal objects were consumed in the fire and explosions of the Ammo which landed on top of the wreckage.
I was not privy to the Accident Report...but later un-official reports suggested it was a swashplate failure.
As an aside to the hover yaw pedal exercise you mention.....during Transition (Brits call it Conversion Training) at Fort Sill.....I used to land the aircraft in a Confined Area...and do the usual IP (CFI) chat about Vertical Take Off capability....copying that given during initial flight training for Huey pilots and did so in a dead pan boring as possible monotone to lull the Student into day dreaming about anything but what was being said. When I noticed some eyes glazing over and eyelids beginning to droop out of boredom.....I stated that I would demonstrate a vertical takeoff from a confined area to the Student.
Then after doing the crew pre takeoff visual clearance routine....I would smoothly raise the Thrust Lever (Collective) to Max Power (by that time in the flight we were at a low fuel level in an empty helicopter that had BAGS of power)....and up we went...as we cleared the trees I input a boot full of left pedal (all but to the stop boot full) and around we went....straight up....to 3,000 feet (about 2500 feet AGL)....and came to a stationary hover. The G forces were noticeable....holding your. head straight up took some doing.....it was in plain terms....exciting.
As most of our Students were experienced Huey pilots with a prior tour in Vietnam flying in a hot humid climate with max loads....the demonstration was very impressive to them.
When I asked if they liked that...which every one of them did....we did a vertical descent into the confined area and I let them do one.....not one of them pulled max power without some coaching.
That was a "conversion" of Huey Pilots into Chinook Pilots.
The sad news is a loaded Chinook in hot conditions (speaking of the A Model) had the same performance problems as did the Hueys when loaded to max for the conditions.
I would think the yawing would have been more disconcerting than dis-orienting.....Chinooks in my experience don't have yawing tendencies as do single rotor helicopters thus that would. have been a far more surprising situation for the crew.
The A Models with the sharp ended aft pylon was far more unstable in yaw than were all of the later models with the square ended pylon.
Shutting off the SAS on an A Model in a steepish turn could allow you to learn what droop stop pounding sounded like at 100 Knots sideways with full opposite pedal input.
That lesson learned was rarely repeated on purpose.
The later models are far more forgiving in that situation.