I still have my ground run authorization card (somewhere) allowing ground running of 206's up to the B212.
I do remember an exciting incident offshore when one of our mechanics was running a 206 on the deck, pulled pitch somehow and found himself 15 feet high and spinning. No choice but to point the nose down and get the thing straight.
After a few wobbly trips around the pattern he managed to set the ship down safely, no worse for wear except he was docked to junior mechanic and owned a great bar story.
His explanation was something about a lifevest being under the collective, and he tried to remove it, and oops...up came the collective. A likely story!
Ever since then we had to ground run with the ship tied down, offshore or onshore.