REFLECTOR: Pitch Trim Mystery

Alex Balic alex157 at pwhome.com
Wed Feb 15 10:59:32 CST 2006


The pitch trim jack screw has an internal "switch" that turns it off in the
particular direction of travel that would bottom it out- possibly this is
just slightly out or the contact is burned, hard to tell- not sure if you
could even open it up to check that - you might want to do some
experimenting- see if you run it all of the way to the bottom and you force
it if it might move just a bit more and loose contact internally, after
relieving pressure, apply pressure in the opposite direction-  might move
back just a tiny bit to regain contact again- just a guess......

-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of John Dibble
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 10:46 AM
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list
Subject: REFLECTOR: Pitch Trim Mystery

Seems like when the Reflector has a what-if discussion, soon after someone
has to go
out and experience it.  I guess the pitch trim failure had my name on it.
Last night
I flew 1.7 hrs at 180 kn with the pitch trim pegged at down trim.  I cut
power just
enough to descend at 500 fpm and kept the trim pegged.  At 5 miles out I
slowed to get
set up for landing and noticed the pitch up trim wasn't working.
Fortunately I've
flown at night enough, so that that didn't add much to the problem.  I had a
5000 ft
runway and a direct 10kn headwind which was a good thing.  Didn't know how
long my arm
would hold out so I took the fastest way in and kept my speed up to 90kn.
Wasn't sure
if I could hold it off at 70.  The landing was a little rough, but I've done
worse.
Today I checked it out and the trim is working fine.  Can anyone tell me
what
happened?  I have fuses and no CBs so it wasn't that.

John

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