RV-6 jam nuts

[beberle]

I've had my RV-6A for a year now and am taking it down for annual. I read all the recent posts about RV-7 elevator jam nuts. So when I went to check mine... I don't have any. No jam nuts on any of the elevator OR rudder rods. Someone Please tell me this is fine and dandy for the RV-6... I don't have a good feeling 'bout this :-/

Brian

[Kyle Boatright]

Originally Posted by beberle

I've had my RV-6A for a year now and am taking it down for annual. I read all the recent posts about RV-7 elevator jam nuts. So when I went to check mine... I don't have any. No jam nuts on any of the elevator OR rudder rods. Someone Please tell me this is fine and dandy for the RV-6... I don't have a good feeling 'bout this :-/

Brian

Good catch.

You should have jam nuts on all of the heim joints on your rudder and elevator hinges. You should also have jam nuts at the end of each push/pull rod.

Do you have the plans for your aircraft? It might be worth taking a weekend and reviewing your aircraft vs the plans and vs best practices. Alternately, there are probably a dozen RV's at KFFC you could compare yours against.

[Pat Hatch]

Brian, unless there is some alternate system being employed here, this is a serious omission. It could lead to spar cracks in the area where the jam nuts should go. If you can, I would contact the builder to see if there's some other method being used here, if an approval from Van's was obtained, and absent a satisfactory response, I would have all the control surface spars inspected for cracks using a dye penetrant.

It is definitely not fine and dandy for a -6 and hopefully you caught it before any damage was done.

[beberle]

On the bright side, I've had a great 100hr year. That'll keep me motivated at I pull my tail feathers
Luckily, I've seen no signs of cracks or deformation. I'll definitely break out the dye penetrant.

Thanks