Pietenpol-List: Rudder control horns....
Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2001 8:17 pm
Original Posted By: "Graham Hansen"
Ted,The Piet rudder with its horn located about halfway up is not designed to accomodate a tailwheel steering horn at the bot-tom. As you correctly say, that's too much torque between the two horns for the slender front rudder spar to withstand.As many do, I employed a pair of 3/32" cables running from the rear rudder bar (pedals on my a/c) to the tailwheel steer-ing arms. It has worked very well and places no stress on thevery light rudder structure which is designed to take air loadsonly. I made no changes to the rudder; it is built strictly accor-ding to the plans and is plenty strong as designed. It is aboutas lightweight as it could be, once again demonstrating the genius of BHP.Glad to hear you are back working on your project.Cheers,Graham________________________________________________________________________________
Ted,The Piet rudder with its horn located about halfway up is not designed to accomodate a tailwheel steering horn at the bot-tom. As you correctly say, that's too much torque between the two horns for the slender front rudder spar to withstand.As many do, I employed a pair of 3/32" cables running from the rear rudder bar (pedals on my a/c) to the tailwheel steer-ing arms. It has worked very well and places no stress on thevery light rudder structure which is designed to take air loadsonly. I made no changes to the rudder; it is built strictly accor-ding to the plans and is plenty strong as designed. It is aboutas lightweight as it could be, once again demonstrating the genius of BHP.Glad to hear you are back working on your project.Cheers,Graham________________________________________________________________________________