tippy

"Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world."

I believe most of the increased responsiveness of a longer flybar comes not from more airlfow over the paddles but from having a longer lever.

The flybar is a lever. The flybar paddle generates a given torque force (distance * force). Granted, the increased airflow will increase the "force" part of the equation but I believe the increase "distance" has a greater affect on responsiveness.
There is a certain amount of torque force required to move the main blades in cyclic response. There is also a gyroscopic force of the paddles (for stability). The leverage has to overcome both.

In order to move the blades faster in cyclic response ... you can either 1) decrease the force the lever is competing against (lighter paddles) or 2) apply a larger torque force (longer lever).

I believe this is what happens when a longer flybar is used ... for the same amount of up/down paddled force ... with a longer flybar (longer lever) ... a larger cyclic force is applied ... increasing cyclic response.

In the posted example of a shorter flybar ... less torque was available (shorter lever) and had trouble competing with the forces needed to "cycle" the main rotor blades ... ie " ... now I have NO cyclic control ..."

The extra airflow gained over the paddles with a longer flybar may increase the effieciency of the paddle force but the paddle has to travel farther (up/down) to induce the same angular input as a shorter flybar. So some of it's responsive gain (due to more airflow) would be absorbed in angular loss.

I agree that there is gain there ... but not like the gain of leverage/torque.

This is just me thinking out loud. If it's wrong ... feel free to bop me in the back of the head.