Stick and Throttle Interference

I am a few months from my DAR inspection and had a few builders out this weekend to do a pre-inspection inspection and see what they could find with the airplane. I am happy to report none of the issues were major, but there is one I wanted to do a bit more research.

When the throttle is less than full the control stick would hit the throttle control if you have full forward elevator and right aileron. When the throttle is pushed in, maybe half or 3/4 throttle, it clears.

Unfortunately I did not take a picture but can add one later in the thread. Just wondering if this is an issue or not. It is basically the last 1-1.5" on stick travel to the right.

Do you ever have the stick in that position, is that required?

Thanks
E

I can't imagine a competent DAR would let you get away with a control stick that could bind or interfere with any part of the aircraft. Yes, it's highly unlikely that you'd ever be in a situation where full-fwd-right deflection of the controls would be necessary, but not good practice to have any possibility of interference.

You have a couple options:
1. Cut the stick down sufficiently to clear... that's what I did. It didn't take much.
2. Move your engine controls further away. Again, might not take much.
3. Limit your forward elevator or aileron travel if you have more than needed to meet the minimum ranges listed in your build manual.

I would vote for #1.

Good luck.

Dumb question, do you have all your control surfaces connected?

Bill has a good question. The stick has a lot of ?excess? travel prior to fitting the control surfaces, elevators & ailerons.

Thanks for the replies.

No dumb questions in this environment.

Yes, everything is connected and rigged.

Will check the aileron angels to ensure they are not excessive and if not, will move the piece below the panel where the controls are located off to the right a bit more.

E

Remember you have leeway on where you set neutral on the stick. This solves most " the stick hits stuff" issues.

Carl

The goal is to make the stick as long as possible, without it hitting "stuff".

If you added a grip, did you cut it down before installing the grip?

(I made mine the same length to the top of the grip as the metal tube was without the grip.)

If you have to cut it down, get a pipe cutter, remove the grip, cut off whatever you need, using snips cut the ring you cut off and remove it, reinstall your grip.

That goes fairly quickly and no need to remove the wires from the grip, just work carefully so you don't pull the wires out. (My wife held my grip while I did the cutting.)

Carl Froehlich said:

Remember you have leeway on where you set neutral on the stick. This solves most " the stick hits stuff" issues.

Carl

Click to expand...

Bingo! Don't cut that stick until you got it rigged,,, and you do have a a fair amount of adjustment in the control rods while still maintaining thread depth integrity.

I had a similar issue. My throttle/prop/mixture is mounted on a small sub-panel below the panel. I just moved it to the right about 1/2".

Thanks Justin, I have the same type of set-up and think half an inch or so would probably do it.

E