elevator backpressure
Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 12:46 pm
QUESTION.......I HAVE FLEW MY PIET ALMOST 4 HOURS AND I HAVE A LOT OF BACK PRESSURE ON THE STICK. IS THIS NORMAL OR......SHOULD I INSTALL A TRIM TAB ON ELEVATOR....ANY SUGGESTIONS?
Yellowing: does your airplane have the fuel tank in the nose? If so, have you only flown it with a mostly-full fuel tank? Back pressure on the stick in my airplane is normal when I have anything more than about a half-tank of fuel (my 16 gallon tank is in the nose), but it eases up as I burn fuel from the tank and the CG shifts aft. Back pressure can be relieved by a number of methods, the quickest and easiest being a bungee cord between the pilot's seat and the rear stick, with a wrap around the stick, that you can slide up or down the stick to vary the amount of back pressure. This can be done easily and quickly for experimentation.
The bigger question is, how carefully did you prepare your weight & balance for the airplane with you in it, and where did the CG end up? If the CG is forward to begin with, then you may need to study some more permanent adjustments. Forward CG can mean that you don't have enough elevator authority in the flare, which will lead to unsatisfyingly hard landings and possibly bouncing or porpoising if you can't get the nose up enough to hold the airplane in the flare.