Gomer Pylot said:
You can't really track them, you just get them to an acceptable ride.
You obviously haven't flown many of the later EP's. Typically they can be tracked in 3 flights or so. 4P's are a lot less too. EP's are a significate improvement over the early 412's in many ways.
The early 412's flying in the GOM are all getting long on the tooth, have had a lot of blade repairs done over the years which affects how they work. Many of the repairs were done in-house and the trailing edge of the blades got thinned out which greatly affects how the blades fly. At lot of rotor working troubles have been locally made. Like mis-matching blades across the fleet.
The pendelum absorbers had nothing to do with rotor working they were put on to reduce the 4P in plane vibration. Yes they do affect the payload...
Actually the 412 and its little cousin the 430 have stacked rotors and both can be worked quite well.