On Fri, 21 May 2004 11:36:55 GMT, "Henry and Debbie McFarland"
wrote:

wrote in message: The only time I'm not
putting pressure
on the rudder pedals for some sort of flight direction correction, is
during cruise in calm winds. Coincidentally, you don't need to apply
rudder in taildraggers at that point either.

Wrong. I have to keep my feet on the rudders all the time. Just the nature
of my correctly-rigged airplane. As a side note: I don't think in terms of
left or right rudder as one does in a C-172. It's just "rudder", a
combination of both. Our birds are very sensitive on the controls, but as a
result, they become a part of the pilot. I think it and Lester does it.

Deb, ease up for pete's sake. I didn't mean that the feet weren't on
the rudder pedals, I meant you don't (or shouldn't much) need to use
them at cruise because the airplane (C172) is rigged to fly neutral at
in that regime. All airplanes are rigged that way, or should be,
because the majority of the time in flight is spent at cruise.

Even the Messerschmitt Bf 109, one of the least directionally stable
fighters of WWII to fly, was rigged to be neutral in cruise. Did this
mean the pilots flew it without their feet on the rudder bar when
cruising? Of course not, but at least they did not have to apply
constant pressure on one or the other pedals to make it fly straight.
They did have to constantly correct heading though as the airplane was
designed with a certain amount of directional instability so that it
responded to the controls quickly.

If your airplane requires constant rudder pressure to center the ball
during normal cruise, something is wrong. What I mean is, it should
not fly in a constant yaw to one side. If it constantly hunts back
and fourth, you have my sympathies.

Corky Scott