Hi Mark,
regarding the tail, sorry to hear. Thrust bearings are bought-in parts, and although they are ordered to be of a defined good quality, we have noticed that on some, the radius of the tracks is not 100 % right, or the the ball cage in some cases bent or squeezed in a way so the balls don't run freely.
Since it is rather thin metal, you could also squeeze it accidentally upon mounting, but you could also (carefully) try and bend it back. Tiny-tiny, but possible.
If you run into such issues, please do not hesitate to contact your dealer or us directly, for a solution.
Regarding the swash plate, as you can see in your video, the small amount of play seems not to affect the blade angle.
Plus, under load, even in load changes, it will most probably not be noticeable. My experience: even if a rotor head has developed quite a bit of play over a long time, it does not really cause issues. Question is, where does it come from, can it be remedied?
I can not really tell from the video.
The head wobble is more likely caused by the dampening and/or something else being slightly off. At which head speed does it occur? Did you do the trim flight? Contrary to popular belief, the trim flight does not trim for a hover mainly, the VBar can handle even large offsets pretty well, but it helps unloading the control loop at the least torque, so in quick load changes (like tic tocs), there are no artifacts in the control loop, but it can react quickly and precisely to what's actually happening.
Best,
Eddi
Born to fly ...
forced to work.