Ben, if you’ll look at the sketch of the rotorhead I posted earlier, the pitch pivot is set forward of the rotorhead spindle. The weight of the machine hanging from the pitch pivot tries to tilt the rotorhead nosedown but it’s balanced by the trim spring.
Upon encountering an upward gust, the increase of rotor thrust overpowers the trim spring and tends to tilt the rotorhead nose down as it should if the machine is to head into the relative wind. An upward gust, combined with forward speed shifts the angle of the relative wind from head on to one rising at an angle. That’s how all stable aircraft behave.
An aircraft that pitches nose up is unstable, magnifying the effect of the gust.
There are some gyros that would be nearly impossible to fly except for a Bensen style offset gimbal rotorhead.
I have flown a number of gyros with reduced rotorhead offset so that the trim spring is eliminated but all were less stable than Bensen’s stock layout. A gyro using a Bensen standard rotorhead, zero pitching moment coefficient blades and with the right trim spring rate will fly indefinitely hands off.
I’ve flown Bensen wood blades, Bensen metal blades, Hughes helicopter blades, homebrew metal blades that were built from a 3/8 inch thick spar, homebrew metal blades of 6” chord and symmetrical airfoil, homebrew symmetrical blades that had the leading edge radius formed in a press brake with trailing edges pulled together and riveted, Rotordyne blades, Stanzee blades, Rotorhawk blades, SkyWheel blades, homebrew Boeing-Vertol VR-7 rotorblades of 7 inch chord and 6 inch VR-7 rotorblades on a 3-blade rotor and last but not least DW rotorblades. The VR-7s were built around a laminated birch spar with vertical grain balsa aft section and fiberglass skins.
The 3/8-inch thick blades were the first gyro blades to use structural bonding without wraparound skins. That was in 1972.
My favorites were Hughes helicopter blades with their 5 pound tip weights; roll out of a tight turn, flare and play helicopter for a few seconds. DWs are the lowest drag blades and are properly balanced about the aerodynamic center with a zero pitching moment airfoil.