To: baranfin
The normal thing to do when encountering Zero G is to pull the cyclic to the rear. It was my contention that in order to fly straight ahead the cyclic would have to be displaced to the right of the rigged neutral position. This meant that there was a right roll component in the swashplate. If in encountering Zero G the pilot pulled aft cyclic he would exacerbate the right roll component generated by the tail rotor.
On a previous thread a post was made telling about a training program in the UK conducted by Tim Tucker. Mr. Tucker is somewhat of a consultant to Robinson and he conducts the safety courses for them. During the development of the R22 he was one of the test pilots. In that training program he told his students that when encountering Zero G they should pull the cyclic back and a “Tad” to the left in order to keep from adding to the tail rotor induced right roll. This is not what the POH states. It states that the stick should be brought back gently to the rear or, in the aft direction. I feel if that is done a low time pilot can lose the helicopter. If the stick is moved too far to the left when moving it aft the aircraft will encounter severe flapping loads and could possibly suffer rotor incursion or mast separation.
There is a possibility that if collective is added to load the rotor the increased drag could cause loss of rotor rpm but that is my opinion. Robinson designed the rotor head with cone hinges to reduce the bending loads on the blade from coning and flapping. If he used a Bell design type rotor the blades would have to be so robust as to add a great deal of weight to the airframe. I personally believe that all of the problems of the Robinson breaking up in flight would go away if they used a fully articulated three-blade rotor system similar to that used on the Sweizer 300.
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The Cat