Increased Rudder Forces After a Windy Week in the TieDowns

[Fffflats]

I'm on board with Desert Rat and what the others are suggesting. And without knowing how beefy the tie-down eye was, I'd be more than a little concerned about how much force it took to bend that eye ring. If memory serves me correctly, that's the equivalent of a 3/8" bolt on that. If you had a steel ring, that was some significant force. The only other things I can think of that may need to be checked are:

• Is the rudder trim wedge still attached?
• If all the other things people have suggested to look at are good, pull the wing root fairing and inspect the places where the wing attaches to the fuselage--especially the rear spar attachment point. It's very unlikely that those were damaged, but I still don't understand how the tie-down was bent.

I had mine on the line in Inyokern for a while and it got a bent ring too.

 

[lr172]

Yes, it is a 3/8" bolt. The tie down was a chain to a steel cable with a significant forward angle to the steel cable from the bolt. There was also a decent amount of slack on the chain. I suspect the slack was taken out quickly, resulting in a very large momentary forward force on the bolt, resulting in the deformation. Attaching photo for reference.

Yes, the rudder trim wedge is still attached.

Good call on pulling the wing root fairing and taking a look.

Hard to tell much from a pic, but looks like that thread took a good amount of aluminum with it. I would be carefully inspecting the threaded block bolted to the wing spar.