Veetail88
Well Known Member
I've been flying my 8 for a while now. When flying solo, my CG is (normally) pretty near the front of the envelope and I've gotten quite used to landing it that way, albeit I run out of up elevator trim on final and am holding a bit of back pressure for landing. This has worked out fine, and as all of my landings are wheelies, only a slight nudge forward is required to stick the airplane to the runway. Everything is fine right?
On the occasion however that I have to go around, with flaps fully deployed and "balls to the wall", a fairly large amount of forward stick pressure is required until I get the flaps up and the trim pushed forward. This has seemed normal to me (although I have no other RV-8 experience to judge by) and I have not worried about it. I do however realize that should I loose my grip on the stick at that moment, I'd be in big trouble! To mitigate this, while my trim and flap switches are on the stick, held tightly by my right hand, I always reach over and operate the flaps and trim with my left hand. This hasn't bothered me and it seems that the the high stick force in this situation is normal.
In discussing this whole thing with a friend the other day, he began to question whether this was indeed normal or not. He's flown way more types than I (except for an RV-8) and doesn't recall running into this.
So that's the question. Is it normal? If not, what might be wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help!
On the occasion however that I have to go around, with flaps fully deployed and "balls to the wall", a fairly large amount of forward stick pressure is required until I get the flaps up and the trim pushed forward. This has seemed normal to me (although I have no other RV-8 experience to judge by) and I have not worried about it. I do however realize that should I loose my grip on the stick at that moment, I'd be in big trouble! To mitigate this, while my trim and flap switches are on the stick, held tightly by my right hand, I always reach over and operate the flaps and trim with my left hand. This hasn't bothered me and it seems that the the high stick force in this situation is normal.
In discussing this whole thing with a friend the other day, he began to question whether this was indeed normal or not. He's flown way more types than I (except for an RV-8) and doesn't recall running into this.
So that's the question. Is it normal? If not, what might be wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help!