Joe,
I understand your bicycle wheel example (after reading it twice that is) but where it loses me is - why does a flapping blade reach its highest point before 90 degrees?
I fly R22/R44 (about 100 hours total) and have been in an R44 flown by an ex blue eagles pilot where we did an almost vertical stall turn. If the tail is much higher in a stall turn (similar to a push over) why does the helicopter not roll to the right?
A final question to anyone...I was always led to believe that a helicopter can fly in any direction so surely flying out of trim (I presume everyone means out of balance) is surely just trying to fly the tail boom against an airflow but that the rotor disk doesn't really care which direction the body is facing?