FWIW, based on 160 hours of homebuilt taildragger experience, I offer the
following:
By default you should get increased tension with increasing deflection as
the spring in the active control cable is loaded by the reaction of the
turned wheel. Ab initio, its useful to have the springs tight in the
straight ahead position as this provides better feel and better control;
later on you get used to sloppy or tired springs (although your inspector
may pick you up on this). The downside is that, with preload, rudder hinges
wear out sooner. A partial solution to this is to use the compression type
of tailwheel control spring with which it is possible to provide preload (
ie the springs are precompressed within their carrier) without the
associated wear.
Inevitably, the spring in the non-active side of the control circuit is
going to go loose during turning. This will be affected partly by horn
geometry and partly by spring rate and precompression/pretension (if any)=2E
I`ve not noticed this loosening to be a problem, the important thing being
that both sides of the tailwheel control are tight around the neutral
postion.
Duncan McFadyean
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