Systems and methods of operating a tiltrotor aircraft include providing the tiltrotor with a plurality of rotatable pylon assemblies. Each pylon assembly includes a rotor system having a plurality of rotor blades operatively coupled to a rotor mast and selectively rotatable in response to rotation of the rotor mast, a swashplate assembly operatively coupled to the plurality of rotor blades, a plurality of swashplate actuators operatively coupled to the swashplate assembly and selectively extendable and retractable to control the position and the orientation of the swashplate assembly, and a swashplate augmenting system. The swashplate augmenting system is selectively operable to cause axial translation of the swashplate actuators and swashplate assembly to augment the travel of the swashplate actuators in order to fold the plurality of rotor blades for operating the tiltrotor aircraft in an airplane forward flight mode.