Left Skidding Tendancey

[lv2plyguitar 172]

Now that I am more comfortable flying my plane and don't have a dead mans grip on the controls, I am starting to notice things that I did not notice before.  I noticed that I have been flying with my right foot slightly depressing the rudder pedal.  When flying yesterday I took my feet off the rudder pedals and my plane has a left skidding tendency.  It doesn't matter which direction I fly.  If I don't touch the pedals at all it will come around and skid quite a bit.  The wings stay level so I don't need to adjust wash. I looked at the verticle stabilizer and sure enough it appears to sit slightly angled to the right when viewing it from the back.  If I measured it I bet it would be out of line at least a 1/2 inch if not more. 

 

What do you recommend to fix the left skidding tendency on a Model C Avid.

 

Thanks

[horsepower 24]

I know some of the guys have made themselves a trim tab on the rudder and it seemed to cure problem.Randy

[Av8r3400 1179]

I know some of the guys have made themselves a trim tab on the rudder and it seemed to cure problem.Randy

That's what I did.

[lv2plyguitar 172]

I wonder why AVID mounted the vertical stab out of line.

[birddog486 21]

Depending on the serial number of your plane the horizontal stab is probably not square either. I was surprised while I was taking the offset out of my vertical stab how far off the horizontal was(almost 2")

 

 

I wonder why AVID mounted the vertical stab out of line.

[Bandit 286]

I put a trim tab on the rudder.

[EDMO 1078]

The theory was to angle the vertical stabilizer to the left a little bit, so you didn't have to hold so much right rudder because of the precession of the propeller. Sounds like someone bit off a little too much angle on the early Avids. Probably 1/2 inch offset would have been enough. However, this will not work for all flight conditions.

The simple cure is to make a small aluminum tab, maybe 2 inches wide and 4 to 6 inches high and rivet it to the rear tube on left side of the rudder at about center height - a slight bend to the left will offset the rudder to the right, and make your bird fly straighter - experiment to get the bend so you can fly with feet off of the rudder pedals - which my instructors chewed my butt for a many times - seems like you are supposed to hold your heading with the pedals - if you have a heading?

EDMO

P.S. Please round the corners on the tab - generously.

Edited 4 Sep 2013 by Ed In Missouri

[C5Engineer 1170]

I grabbed a piece of aluminum out of the scrap pile in the hangar and stuck it on the rudder using 1/2" 3M double sided tape (the grey stuff). It was too big the first time and made the rudder feel funny so I cut it down by about a 1/3 and tried it again. Took a couple flights tweaking on it till I was happy with it and then I rattle canned it white.

[lv2plyguitar 172]

If my plane is skidding left would I bend the tab to the right if I am looking at the plane from the rear?

[C5Engineer 1170]

No bend it the same way it's skidding to force the whole rudder the opposite way.