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Control stick height?

KazooRV-9A

Well Known Member
Patron
What is a good control stick height? It's obvious that it doesn't want to hit the throttle or mixture controls (which I don't have on place yet).

I friend said he trimmed almost 3" off the sticks in his RV7. Seems like a lot to me.

What is a comfortable height for the sticks? What height have builders used, that gives good control feel?

Tnx,

AC
 
Don't trim your control stick until you have your panel built and installed, all rigging completed, stick grips installed and your seats in place. IF you need to trim them you only want to trim enough for full deflection clearance. Trim them too short and it will have an impact on how your control inputs react to aileron/elevator movement which will reflect in the ride quality by the slightest movement of the stick.
 
What David C. said!

When you do get ready to trim it, only trim it enough so the top of your stick grip is the same height as the stock stick.

A short stick translates a little stick movement into a LOT of control movement. If you leave it as long as possible, then a little stick movement translates into a little control movement.

In flight, you can move your hand down but when landing, you will move it to the top to give you more precise control.

Some time back Van's wrote an article on this and for the life of me, I can't find.

Take a look at some YouTube videos of aerobatic pilots, their sticks are surprisingly long.

PS. I had my grip in place and wired when it came time to trim mine. I used a pipe cutter to cut it off and then used tinsnips to splice the resulting ring. Easy enough.
 
Great. Leave them as long as possible. I was thinking this, but another local builder was convinced that he wanted to (and did) trim them significantly....
 
Great. Leave them as long as possible. I was thinking this, but another local builder was convinced that he wanted to (and did) trim them significantly....

I recently help a guy transition to his -9 and his instructor told him to hold the stick as low as possible.

On approach we were up, down, left, and right. When I looked over and realized where his hand was I asked him to move it to the very top of the stick and like magic he stopped overcontrolling the plane and it was like we were on rails.

Yep, leave it as long as possible.
 
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I recently help a guy transition to his -9 and his instructor told him to hold the stick as low as possible.

On approach we were up, down, left, and right. When I looked over and realized where his hand was I asked him to move it to the very top of the stick and like magic he stopped overcontrolling the plane and it was like we were on ice.

Yep, leave it as long as possible.
I am that guy. I was transitioning from large heavy aircraft to my newly acquired 9. Bill was kind enough to fly over and spend some time with me giving me some pointers. The moment he had me move my hand to the top of the stick it was like night and day. Control issues, especially on short final and into the landing, went away. Thank you Bill.
 
I am that guy. I was transitioning from large heavy aircraft to my newly acquired 9. Bill was kind enough to fly over and spend some time with me giving me some pointers. The moment he had me move my hand to the top of the stick it was like night and day. Control issues, especially on short final and into the landing, went away. Thank you Bill.
Happy to help Angelo! We need to get together and fly somewhere together.
 
I trimmed my stick until there was good clearance on the instrument panel. However, I think I should have trimmed off another couple of inches: I find I grip the CC with thumb and two fingers that far below the top of said CC. Especially when flying formation.

(RV 7A)
 
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