John, good points, perhaps as a result of the reports on this mishap some answers to your questions will arrive.
SAS: I figured you were aware of rotary wing formation flying.
It was almost a rhetorical question.
Back to the V-22 and how wake turbulence might have outsized effects on the tilt rotor.
I have a picture in my mind of thrust asymmetry rather than what the test pilot was addressing in discussing roll off. I don't know the Chinook well enough to think through this, but am wondering how often thrust asymmetry between the two rotors might have caused handling problems in that model, and how it accomodated that sort of problem. (Or rather, how the pilots did ...)
It seems to me that in the Chinook, a thrust asymmetry would manifest itself in pitch up / pitch down anomalies, while in the Osprey, it would do so in roll. As I sketch it out on the back of a napkin, the force in the Osprey would be generated over a longer arm, which means that the force required to counter such fluctuations would be greater, in proportion, but also that the rate of roll when encountering thrust asymmetry would likely be larger.
I'll leave it at that for the moment. Will ponder on that for a bit.