My 2 cents worth is that you need either a closed loop or some thing to prevent the rudder pedal from going all the to the floor, or firewall. This is recommended in one of Tony B's books.
And the reason is shown by a friends accident back in the mid 60's he was flying along in his Luscombe 8E when one of the rudder springs broke. The other peddle went to the firewall with no way in flight to get it back to neutral. He did a spiral in from 2000ft AGL. He was very lucky there was about10 ft of soft snow where he impacted the ground. Ohterwise he may not have lived through it. Bill Higdon > Hi Netters > Re rudder return springs. I one flew Jodel which had return springs. One day > the left rudder on my side (pilot) became un stuck and the rudder pedal fell > flat on the floor. I could not get it up. I had no rudder control. My > passenger was able to get out of his harness , get down on the floor , raise > the pedal until I could get my foot on it. Thus control, again. We landed > without any problem, > My KR2M has a continuous loop. further more a system of pulleys on the > cables infront of the rudder pedals has a spring tension built into it. Thus > at all times there is about 35 lbs. tension in the rudder cable. It operates > smoothly and is fail safe (I hope). > Rehards > Hariold Woods > Orillia,ON. Canada > [email protected] >
