Hi Mike

Glad to see someone's awake.

I will upload some more pictures shortly.

The idea came to me whilst I was replacing the tail spring, welded a 1.1/4" hole saw to same sized 15" tube to make a 18" deep hole saw ran it up the remains of the tail spring only took an hour including welding etc. Leaves a hole just right to flox in a new one.

I knew that if you lost the tail wheel you also lost rudder control as well.

I looked at the JimBob bell crank, and felt there was an easier cheaper and lighter way to get all the benefits.

Forty years ago my brother had a control line model aircraft that had a triangle with a hole a each point. That sort of did something close to what I wanted.

After a bit of playing around I came up with a small s/s triangle.

Bolt on the rudder horn mine is taped so the nut is a lock nut and a small spacer to stop the thimbles contacting the horn. The other holes, one connects directly to a shortened normal rudder cable. The remaining rearward connects to the tailwheel horn.

This was repeated on the other side.

I only needed about 30" of extra cable(cheap or what).

The Triangle articulates to accommodate the differential action/spring compression etc. Brilliant.

Disconcet one or both cables to the tailwheel rudder works just fine
all that happens is the foot controls in the cockpit move forward about 1/2". This is because the triangle is neutral(ish) under normal operation and displaces forward when the tailwheel cables are disconnected. It's all tensioned by the bulkhead springs and pilot as normal. You need to take care to maintain the peddle position.

To keep it all lined up I cut out the penolic and used a 5/16" or 3/8" version of the elevator pin bolted to a 1/8" thick 1" X 1.1/2" steel plate, all glassed in with 3X Bid, there is no pull back on the rudder. The horn tube was lengthened so to remove the rudder you push the weldment up rather than down.

Lightweight and cheap, as it saves the extra duplicated cable run and bell crank. Cannot jam from something inside the tail cone easy to inspect as all external.

Clean and sanitary looking.

Never did like the spring tensioning arrangement cobbled up by QAC.

My test pilot thought it was c__p but asked me to make him the bits to convert his when he had flown it.

Obviously the usual disclaimer applies you copy you test it your risk.

Clive

Hello Clive:

I am very interested in how you did the rudder horns and rudder pivot.
I would appreciate more photos and/or more description.

Thanks -- Mike Perry

gobxoy@... wrote:

Hi Guys

[snip]

As you already have the bell crank, there's not much point changing,
in the UK I came up with an alternative used on two Quickies. It's
simply a small triangle of SS sheet with three holes on each rudders
horn. Which is lowered and the pivot moved to inside the rudder horn
much like a larger elevator outer pivot, we ditched the pesky
inadequate penolic bearing. It achieves a similar result, in that the
ratios can be independent. It still gives rudder if the tail wheel is
dangling in the air. Still reliant on the same number of splices, but
simpler and lighter and easy to inspect, doesn't have anything inside
the fuselage. There is a picture in the gobxoy album. Can add clearer
shot if anyone asks.

The Gall essay is exemplary. Well worth reading.

Clive Clapham gobxoy

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