Cruising in forward slip solved!

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elmanzah
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Cruising in forward slip solved!

Post by elmanzah »

Hello all,

So I don't know if others encountered this or if most think this is obvious. On a number of occasions I was bewildered and upset that my plane was not flying in perfect alignment. By that I mean the slip skid indicator is perfectly aligned in straight and level flight. It happened today again where with no rudder input I was in cruise flight level and in a forward slip.

I researched and researched and suspected the nose wheel to be the culprit. I've seen videos (including my own) where the front wheel defaults to pointing left and just stays there. Something by the way that I find curious but perhaps a topic for another thread.

Today as I was flying on a long cross country, it occurred to me that the tie down rings may be unaligned and that could cause the planes problematic yaw relative to the direction of travel. I've used the left wing ring to mount a GoPro and may have rotated it out of alignment. At first I thought the aerodynamic implication of that would not be as great as the indicated degree of slip. I decided to land, check the rings, fix if unaligned and fly again. Sure enough, the left wing ring was slightly turned and I straightened it. Took off after that and the plane was perfectly aligned again! It makes sense to me now because of how far out on the wings they are (think moment).

My story for everyone's benefit.

Thanks!
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waynemcc999
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Re: Cruising in forward slip solved!

Post by waynemcc999 »

Could still be the nose wheel corking, because that seems to be a function of the nose wheel angle on liftoff. You'll need to verify by many, many trial takeoffs... or a GoPro on the tail skid facing forward.
Wayne McClelland
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elmanzah
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Re: Cruising in forward slip solved!

Post by elmanzah »

waynemcc999 wrote:Could still be the nose wheel corking, because that seems to be a function of the nose wheel angle on liftoff. You'll need to verify by many, many trial takeoffs... or a GoPro on the tail skid facing forward.

It’s possible but I think the conclusion I feel most comfortable with having read this forum and others is that the plane flies trimmed with the nose wheel corked to the left. I’ll post the write up that drives my thinking in the next post.
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elmanzah
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Re: Cruising in forward slip solved!

Post by elmanzah »

I know this has been posted here before
http://da-40.blogspot.com/?m=1
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Lou
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Re: Cruising in forward slip solved!

Post by Lou »

I think you are on to something Hisham. I am careful to align the rings (or remove them altogether) and uncoordinated flight is the exception not the rule with my aircraft. I still think the nosewheel is a factor some days.
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