rudder travel capabilities

I have a Kitfox 3 with Kitfox 4 wings. It has a rudder stop that limits the degrees of rudder (about 14 degrees off center line). At full rudder there is a gap between the elevator and rudder of about 6". There is an older fellow that stops by my plane and he has built a number of Kitfox planes over the years. He says my rudder should be coming within 2" pf the elevator. Considerably more rudder angle. I have gone through the builders papers and cannot find the recommended degrees of rudder. Is there a standard?

Page FD5 in my Kitfox 4 manual say 30 degrees each way. Seems like your friend is right. Jim Chuk

Thanks! that's sounds more like it.

You can never have too much rudder, as long as it doesn't interfere with the elevators.

If a person has the airfoiled tail rather than the straight sided tail I believe the rudder swing spec is 25 degrees......I go along with Jim Ott's comment about you can never have enough rudder.....I found on our S 7 with the airfoiled tail I could adjust to 27 degrees and still keep adequate elevator clearance rather than limit to 25.

Thanks for all the info. I will be adjusting the stops today. Thanks again

I strongly recommend you don't set you final rudder stops until you have covered and painted the tail (applies only to airfoiled tail). The reason is the covering and painting add quite a bit of thickness to the rudder leading edge as well as the fairing on the vertical tail. You will then find you need to back out the rudder mounting rod eyes to allow clearence. As soon as you do that, it changes the rudder stops, which then requires you to ADD material to the rudder stops which is far more difficult to do than removing material. Just cool your jets and wait until covering and painting are done, then tackle this easy task of final rudder stops. Don't ask me how I know all this.