Rudder Issues

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TomLangston
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:13 pm

Rudder Issues

Post by TomLangston »

First my thanks to Alfred for getting this forum up and running. I always thought that builders and pilots of the Falco needed this!

Anyway - my rudder issues - at my last annual my rudder cable tension was at only 20 lbs. After 6 years of flying the Falco I have finally figured out the problem.

Let me start at the beginning. 457TC first flew in 2014 and during the test flights I thought I was feeling some buzzing in the rudder pedals. I checked the tension on the cables and they were about 10 lbs low. Although I was sure that the tension was correct before the test flights. I talked to Alfred about this and he was very alarmed by this!

In the end I put some paint on all the swagged connections (so that I could possibly tell if the connections were pulling loose at a glance). I retightened the cable tension and continued the test flights. Over the next several years the rudder tension always seemed to be erratic when checked—weird because the aileron and elevater tensions were always correct!

I also knew that the spec in ac43 was not met regarding number of threads showing on each side of the brass tension barrels, so last year I got a new set of cables from Craig Gunder. They were actually a bit longer and I was feeling better about all this till my last condition inspection I happened to check the rudder tension while I was doing a gear swing. The tension was only 20 lbs. with the gear up. Put the gear down and the cable tension went back to a normal 45 lbs. I always knew that the steering arms came into contact with part # 663 (I think) I always thought that’s ok just means no slop in the nosegear steering. But the parts come into contact so hard that it changes the cable tension.

Obviously it only matters what the tension is when flying so I guess I’ve been flying around with only about 20 lbs tension on the cables while flying and then when I checked the tension with the gear down it was closer to normal. Anyway I bent the steering arms slightly and got some clearance there. Problem solved!
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