Fookididdy FookFook that was an exciting landing!

[dholly 718]

15 knot X-wind and damn near ran out of rudder! Yes Larry, there is a Santa Claus...

[Av8r3400 1179]

Yikes!!!!

Go buy a lottery ticket, it's your day!

[EDMO 1078]

15 knot X-wind and damn near ran out of rudder! Yes Larry, there is a Santa Claus...

"Good Landings are any that you walk away from."

OK Doug - We know your vocabulary is better than that - LOOKS LIKE you hit the rudder stop plenty hard? Do you have the full 30 degree rudder?

Should you put out an AD? How about a stop on the pedals at full rudder?

Your Lucky Day...

EDMO

Edited 18 Jun 2013 by Ed In Missouri

[High Country 69]

as bad as it looks i'd say you'd better be counting your blessings, just think if that thing would have let go entirely yikes

 

lessons learned- ive seen this before and ed's suggestion to put a stop possibly from the firewall is not a bad idea

 

-Robert-

[akflyer 1427]

damn! that looks exciting to say the least! my rudder stops are the firewall

glad you dont get to put a strike through on another plane in your signature

[EDMO 1078]

Doug - I think you have just made a future mod to my bird!

Thanks,

EDMO

[saskavid 47]

Hmmm I'm thinking ther should be an overlay or a wrap welded at the point of and covering the breakage area, similar to the wrap on  the avid rudder bars.Wonder how many other mod 4 kitfoxes with E type brakes have had this happen?Thankfully nothing else was wrecked.

  Mike

[Av8r3400 1179]

There is a service bulletin from Kitfox that replaces the rudder bars with bars that have reinforced welds on the cable arms and on the vertical bars.  

 

The new arms cost ~$250.  The reenforcing kit for your existing arms is $135.

[EDMO 1078]

There is a service bulletin from Kitfox that replaces the rudder bars with bars that have reinforced welds on the cable arms and on the vertical bars.  

 

The new arms cost ~$250.  The reenforcing kit for your existing arms is $135.

I have the reinforced vertical (pedal) bars, per kitfox SB, but sure would like to see a copy of the cable arm reinforcement - Still think a stop on the verticals would prevent this.

Not about to pay that much for a little bit of steel to weld on !

EDMO

[C5Engineer 1170]

Yehaw! I better check mine out. Man that would of been catostrophic had that puppy came off while you were still full rudder deflection out on the rwy.

[tcj 150]

A couple pictures attached.

[Russ. 7]

Glad to hear you are OK, and plane is in one piece.  Get er wraped, and vert. stops installed.  

[EDMO 1078]

rudder opeday reinforcing.jpgrudder pedal reinforcing back.jpgA couple pictures attached.

Thanks for the photos - going to fix mine and maybe pedal stops too.

EDMO

[SuberAvid 617]

Wow, Glad everything turned out OK.  I'm with Leni, my FW is my stop but I like the wrap idea!

[dholly 718]

Yes I do have a full 30* degrees of rudder deflection. Reviewing events, I may have unwittedly contributed to the failure. Hoping to improve brake geometry somewhat, I recently took out one hole on the cable adjusters at the rudder horn to get a bit more back angle on the pedals. 

[Russ. 7]

Sounds like a severe case of LEADFOOT.

[dholly 718]

Figured I'd share the fix pix. Made up some strapping to reinforce the rudder cable arms and gussets for the pedal torque to upright tubes. Again, gotta love that Kubota Orange touch up paint for matching my powder coat!

[C5Engineer 1170]

Looks awesome Doug! I think you'll be breaking your leg or your cable before those ever let go again!

[dholly 718]

"...break your cable...", HaHa

Fookididdy FookFook

bite your tongue!

 

FYI to all, if you ever need to notch round tubing there is an EAA Hints for Hombuilders video by Earl Luce on how to do this with a hand grinder. Workable but kinda rough so I used the Tube Coping Calculator on www.metalgeek.com. The calculator allows you to enter all sorts of tubing dia. and angle variables, along with offsets if needed for different dia. tubing intersections, and print out a paper pattern with a cut line to wrap around your tubes for perfect coping every time. Very cool and eliminates a bunch or guesswork or trial and error hacking, as even simple 90* degree same size tube coping requires an interesting notch (you can see in my pics). 

[akflyer 1427]

The ole joint jigger is a life saver if you know you will be doing lots of these cuts.. few different size hole saw's and your golden!  The calculator is sweet though!

 

[Trackwelder 12]

Steve wittman Used finger Patches around all those tubes, I am still putting them on my rudder pedals, yours could steer a tank.