To: Crab
Your illustration of the Bell swashplate Vs blade tilt is wrong. When you push the cyclic forward on most Bell helicopters the swashplate will tilt down at the 12:00 position with the blades disposed over the 3:00 and 9:00 positions. With the blade in this position the pitch horns are at the 12:00 and 6:00 positions. That means that the blades have the maximum pitch change relative to their collective pitch angles. The advancing blade will have less pitch and the retreating blade has more pitch and some “unknown force” will cause the blade disc to tilt down over the nose.
In stating that the blade is free to feather a better choice of words could have been is that the blades can be made to feather. This feathering can be accomplished by moving the pitchlink in relation to the blade or, by moving the blade in relation to the pitch link. This is what happens when the blade flaps up or down in relation to the parallel paths of the disc and the swashplate resulting in pitch coupling.
------------------
The Cat