Big green cable elevator trim question

[bkilby]

Does the big green cable make the elevator 'stiffer' in movement for you folks with the manual trim? The elevator movement on my 6A is a little too stiff for my tastes (haven't flown it yet, talking about just movement on the ground), and the only thing we can think of that is causing it is the big green trim cable. When you move the elevators up and down, you can see the cable being moved a little back in the tail, which I think may be causing the stiff movement. The 9A I fly has electric trim and the elevator movement on it is smooth as glass - no stiffness.. Just wondering if it;s the trim cable that could be the culprit?

[hevansrv7a]

No way to know - never flew it any other way - but it's quite free and very pitch sensitive compared to even a C-150.

[bkilby]

Found another post with the same issue on a 9A.. I have pm'd him to see if he resolved it or had any adverse effects in flight..

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...manual+trim%22

[rvbuilder2002]

Originally Posted by bkilby

Does the big green cable make the elevator 'stiffer' in movement for you folks with the manual trim? The elevator movement on my 6A is a little too stiff for my tastes (haven't flown it yet, talking about just movement on the ground), and the only thing we can think of that is causing it is the big green trim cable. When you move the elevators up and down, you can see the cable being moved a little back in the tail, which I think may be causing the stiff movement. The 9A I fly has electric trim and the elevator movement on it is smooth as glass - no stiffness.. Just wondering if it;s the trim cable that could be the culprit?

The cable does cause some spring resistance from wanting to return to being straight but from just a verbal description I can't say that that is what you are feeling. Their are a bunch of different causes of control friction in the elevator system on an RV so it could be any one of them or a combination of more than one. Pulling the cable fwd out of the elevator and then rechecking would the first place to start looking for it.

BTW I actually prefer the manual trim (I have flown a lot of hours in both) and switching between RV's with manual and those with electric trim I don't notice a difference in the elevator feel in flight.

[664781]

Mine was stiff after I put the wings on. I found that the brackets for the control column at the wing spar were binding and needed to be shimmed. Just a little difference between the actual wing spar and the false spar I used to mount up the control column caused the problem. I think I had to swap a thick washer for a thin one to fix the problem. This made a huge difference with the Elevator feel on the ground.

[bkilby]

Originally Posted by 664781

Mine was stiff after I put the wings on. I found that the brackets for the control column at the wing spar were binding and needed to be shimmed. Just a little difference between the actual wing spar and the false spar I used to mount up the control column caused the problem. I think I had to swap a thick washer for a thin one to fix the problem. This made a huge difference with the Elevator feel on the ground.

Thanks.. I'll have to check that.. but man... I don't want to have to take any of those spar bolts out!

[billnaz]

My manual trimmed elev. is as smooth as silk. check the whole system for the culpret.

[174Bob&Nancy]

I would check the bearing clearance between the left and right elevators I have a friend with a 9 and his elevator was stiff after he bolted the two halves of the elevator together at the center bearing above the control horns this put tension on the outer bearing and create lots of drag,hope this description helps,Bob.

[664781]

I did not pull the spar bolts, just the hinge/bearing bolt and removed a washer that freed up everything.

Good luck.