In cruise flight in our PA32-300, if you move the rudder slightly off-center, there is a strange tendency for the rudder to continue to move strongly in the same direction. That is, if I move it slightly left, you can feel the force in the pedal increasing and trying to force the rudder further to the left. Ditto if you move it slightly off center to the right -- you feel an increasing force trying to move the rudder to the right.
When we bought this aircraft it had both nose wheel fairing and nose wheel centering springs installed (separate topic on that). My reading of the POH indicated that the centering springs are not needed when the nose wheel fairing is installed.
So, at annual, we had the centering springs removed. During the test flight afterward, I found that the divergent yaw was much more pronounced. Is seems that the centering springs were previously limiting how far the rudder would tend to swing on its own, and with them removed, the first time I hit a little turbulence was pretty shocking. It took quite a lot of leg muscle to return the rudder to center.
Anybody run into something like this?
When we bought this aircraft it had both nose wheel fairing and nose wheel centering springs installed (separate topic on that). My reading of the POH indicated that the centering springs are not needed when the nose wheel fairing is installed.
So, at annual, we had the centering springs removed. During the test flight afterward, I found that the divergent yaw was much more pronounced. Is seems that the centering springs were previously limiting how far the rudder would tend to swing on its own, and with them removed, the first time I hit a little turbulence was pretty shocking. It took quite a lot of leg muscle to return the rudder to center.
Anybody run into something like this?
