I'm in no way an experienced joe in this matter, but I had quite a fright while out on one of my first solos in a robby, right after watching Frank's horror film, doing some orbiting around a field next to a nice mountain. Hit a downdraft, felt a right roll from an already steep right orbit, scared the bejeebus out of me and ruined a brand new set of fruit o the looms. Sure enough on the next flight with my instructor, I felt "low G" during a downdraft in flight and the right roll came on again. I got very white and was confident our mast was miliseconds away from departing so thus added quite a bit of aft cyclic, to which the instructor asked why I banked right and slowed. Told him I felt we were in a low G situation and was taking appropriate measures... he mentioned that we were nowhere near the point at which the chopper would roll right on its own. Apparently when we got a little light, I would get a little too frightened of the chopper, and let it do what it wanted to do... which, with the trim pushing on the cyclic, was roll right. A nice ride through the mechanical turbulence of the downtown skyscrapers with him at the helm, coming through unscathed, and I was right as rain again. I've since rode much bigger downdrafts and never gotten scared again... just a little preemptive aft cyclic and on we go.
Not saying that you weren't in a low G arena rjtjrt, but all the chaps I fly with here in Hawaii say they have never seen an uncommanded right roll in turbulence, and it gets very rough out here. Add to that, the gents who got to do the low G training at the Robby factory when it was still there said the roll was faster than you'd imagine... not much time to realize and react with the proper aft input. Their advice was to keep the aft cyclic in mind, use a little every time that you feel light, keep the chopper level, and turbulence is no big deal. Till you hit a thunderstorm. Then unbuckle, sit on the instrument panel and shove the cyclic up yer bum... Makes it interesting for the crash investigators. Always thought that was a good one.
Just what I've been told.
Mike
Mike