I doubt that any serious rotary designer would have ignored it, after all they had plenty of examples around.
Such as all of the threshing machines or harvesters, which have been around since the steel age, all of which incorporated high inertia rotating components, (to thresh the grain out of the head) with a free wheel device to stop catastrophic failures from back loads, should there be a sudden cessation within the drive system.
The Sunshine series of harvesters sprag clutch was almost identical to the R22, albeit a much heavier device.
I should have added, many of which were horse drawn. horses stopped, everything out the back happy!!
