The following was taken from a paper presented on the Internet by Nick Lappos regarding blade lag phenomenon. It should be noted that in his presentation he made a disclaimer but he still alluded to centrifugal force in making his point.
“Why doesn't the blade just lag back against the rear stops when we increase
pitch (and therefore drag)? Because the centrifugal force (physics jocks cut
me some centripetal slack, OK?) tries to make the blade stay at 90 degrees to
the hub, and that force is awesome. Typical CF for an S-76 is 33,000 pounds.
To get the blade to lag 3 degrees back, the CF will fight with a restoring
lead force of 1700 pounds”.
Although centrifugal force is not a real force according to some physicists it must be addressed at times even if only to make a point to those of us that do not have an engineering background.
[ 04 January 2002: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]</p>