SeamusG

Sidebar: Sullivan tail wheel malfunction at the field - and the fix

I took my 4Star60 to the field for its maiden flight Sunday. Everything looked good to go until I tried taxiing while attempting to take off. All of a sudden the plane to a HARD left hand turn with just a tad of rudder input. Chopped throttle & kill kept the prop in 1 piece. On closer inspection all looked fine until I tweaked the wheel left to right. There was a point that the spring tension caused the bent wire sticking thru the brass collar on the assembly (attached to the rudder) to flip over 90 degrees causing the tail wheel to snap full left. No doubt that it's an installation issue. This is the second time I have used this particular assembly. I must of bent the wire in such a way to add a double-bend that causes the problem - blah, blah blah ...

The fix - a friend showed me a trick that he recently learned. Run a bolt thru hole in the brass collar used for the spring. Take a length of fuel tubing, push it over the bolt head, safety wire the fuel tubing, then stretch the tubing a bit to add tension and screw the tubing to the bottom of the rudder in the same hole previously used for the spring.

Simple, easy to implement (needed to run a 2-56 tap thru the brass collar) and easy to repair at the field.

pic 1 - side view showing the fuel tubing stretched (I used 2 sheet metal screws - holes coated with CA to harden)
pic 2 - top view showing clean approach
pic 3 & 4 - just proud of how the 4*60 turned out. Saito 91 with a build weight of 7 1/2 lbs.