Rudder Turnbuckles

[JoeRuscito]

I saw someone on FB post an image using turn buckles to attach the rudder to the cables. My first thought was that this could be used to trim the yaw axis as many do with the small trim tab glued to the rudder. Is this reasonable to assume? I was thinking I could set the cables with the turn buckles centered and then adjust after flight to trim out any yaw imbalance.

Id appreciate everyone thoughts on this!

Thanks!

[jiott]

No, that will not do much to trim the yaw, all it will do is allow you to center, or offset, your pedals with feet off. The rudder itself will always center itself in the airstream with feet off; the springs are not strong enough to do much other than return the pedals to neutral. A tab on the rudder is the way to bias the rudder one way or another.

[JoeRuscito]

Got it. That makes sense... then the question is how often, following the manual do the pedals end up slightly not symmetrical. Is the turn buckle system worth the upgrade or is it fairly easy to set the pedals even with each other?

Thanks!

[Dave S]

Joe,

I view turnbuckles on a kitfox as unnecessary cost, complexity, weight. Factually, if a person carefully measures the cables when swaging per the manual- the rudder pedals will be centered, and they won't change later; or if they do, something is broken.

In the case where the swaging may have been off a bit, a person can fix that by making new links at the rudder attachment which are slightly longer or shorter for one side or the other or both.

When I started flying the kitfox, I instantly came to understand the factory setup for the rudder cables, as designed, as as good a system as I have ever flown with - the springs keep the cables tight always and there is no slop as a person gets with closed rudder cable systems that require adjustment - think of the Kitfox design as auto-adjust. It is excellent just the way it is designed.

[DesertFox4]

Put them on my model 4. Never used them after rigging was done initially. Save the time and complexity as Dave said. The stock system works just fine.

[JoeRuscito]

Really glad I asked! Thanks guys!