To: collective bias
What you say may very well be true. When I posed the question to Nick regarding the positions of the servos I was asking if they were in the same place as the older Sikorsky models, (fore and aft servo at 45-degrees ahead of the longitudinal axis and the lateral servos disposed 90-degrees to either side of the fore and aft servo). He said I was wrong but he didn’t say why. With that answer I contacted the Sikorsky Service Department. I asked them about both the S-76 and the Blackhawk relative to the position of the servos. I was told that the Blackhawk servos do not connect to the swashplate but are mounted in the control run for ballistic tolerance. With that knowledge I amended my initial info request and asked about the positioning of the control linkage on the stationary swash plate asking if they were the same as the older models. I am awaiting their response.
If you remember in one of Nicks' posts he indicated that he did a lot of test flying where they were experimenting with different bellcranks in the mixing unit to get Gamma right. This adds credence to what you heard.
I also asked if when the cyclic was moved forward if only the fore and aft servo moved or, if several servos moved resulting in a vector to compensate for shifting of Gamma.
[ 31 July 2001: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]