Hi guys,
Lu, I have always been under the impression that to try and put any left cyclic into a low or zero 'G' situation can be more detremental than just going with the right roll. I use to be a mustering pilot here in Australia. Alot of pilots early on when R22's took over from the majority of B47's found themselves in low g situations when they 'bunted' over from a steep pull up, either after 'hitting' some cattle or just coming up to have a look around. In this day and age it is a recognised sin, but back then it was the norm'. Anyway it was a common topic of discussion about how to avoid mast bumping in this situation. The way the whole thing was explained to me back then, was that when in a low or zero g situation, the rotor and the fuselage/tail rotor were two seperate systems independant of each other. Due to tail rotor roll the fuselage rolled right. Now if you were to put in left cyclic to correct the roll the inevitable mast contact would occur. Thats bad. For this reason we were told to simply put in the (in practice limited amount) aft cyclic and then hold the cyclic smack in the middle and let the hole ship take the roll to the right. The roll right is far more pronounced than the effect of aft cyclic by the way. This was demonstrated remarkably well when one of our students failed to lower the collective when the instructor rolled the throttle off, the desperated lowering of the collective by the instructor put the poor little helicopter in a vilant low g with the advertised right roll. The cyclic was centered as above - not only did they survive but were the first people to unofficially fly an R22 inverted (the story actualy includes oil on lower portion of main rotor blades). I am making light of the story but believe me it was deadly serious at the time and prompts me to write this. The point I want to make is that even an 18 degree input of left cyclic will put the rotor head that much closer to the mast in a low g situation. THAT should be avoided more so in my opinion than the right roll. Thats my own opinion and I take nothing away from the Robinson notices in the POH. If in fact they are 'teaching' that I would be very surprised.
The only other thing I should add is that in the mustering situation I describe above there is usually very little air speed at the top of the pull up, and the aircraft after rolling right was found to 'fall' out of the mess fairly quickly - it was then easy to load up the disc again.
See what you think. Cheers