Have never needed to ditch an R44 with pop-outs so couldn't tell you how they perform. Flew an R44 with the fixed floats years ago in the UK and France. Landed on lakes with it from time to time, and was good. For the CAA not to approved the pop-outs they must have a flaw in the system somewhere.
Double check with your Ops Inspector (if you have an AOC), may have changed nowadays.
TiP
