In a message dated 15/05/00 20:13:24 GMT Daylight Time,
carl@photos.prestel.co.uk writes:
<< How do you know when you have a totally friction free system >>
No such thing of course but it's easy to measure. Attach a light cord to the
top of your control column and lead it over the side to some sort of weight.
The simplest is to tie a bottle clear of the ground and start filling it
with water. To get a decent answer you need low friction where the cord goes
over the edge of the cockpit. If you can't be bothered to rig up a pulley,
cut a plastic lid (the sort on spray cans) to make a curved surface and put
that on the cockpit edge. When the stick first moves, take the bottle away to
the kitchen scales and weigh it. Ok, there are a couple of cosines to
multiply in due to the angle cord reaches the nearest corner of the door
aperture, but for comparative readings you can choose not to use them. If
you get an uncosined weight approaching 1 kg. (equivalent to around 3 ft.lb)
without even the wings riggged that's too much for the Navaid to track well
in my experience. Great for offsetting roll asymmetry though !
Graham C. G-EMIN
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