"Jim Vincent" wrote in message
...
(DG's) have an elevator pushrod that
terminates in a 'C' shaped fitting. A roller bearing on the elevator fits
snugly into the open 'C', a reliable automatic hookup but does need
attention at assembly time.

Wrong there, my friend. The standard Cirrus accident where the elevator
disconnected failed because the pushrod did not catch in the "C".
Admittingly,
it is very difficult to make it happen, but it can and did. Had he done a
proper inspection, he would have caught it. This is proven by tests Tom
Knauff
did on a standard Cirrus. After much effort, he was able to invoke the
failure
mode.


Sorry Jim but where was I wrong? It is reliable - provided that the
assembler pays attention to what they are doing as I said. If it is
assembled correctly it is extremely unlikely to fail unless a pushrod
corrodes, a belcrank fails, a mounting delaminates or other completely
unrelated failure occurs. I first typed 'fairly reliable connection' in my
post but changed it to 'reliable' on reflection with the caveat that it does
need attention to detail. BTW I didn't know the Cirrus used this type of
hookup. My post was not meant to be an exhaustive description of how
automatic hookups work just a fairly reasonable response to Miguels'
question.

Ian