Libelle/Kestrel aileron drive

I am perturbed but not a,mazed that this problem is still around. Yearsago I ordered a pair of aileron drives from the manufacturer. There was no indication of L/R nor any note that they are mirror images One was installed . The flight test day i was busy instructing, till the soaring looked irresistable. A hurried assembly and control check etc; was follwed by two failed takeoffs when i lost lateral control; I was lucky; I had installed the L unit on the R wing. Complaint to the suplier produced a cop out; it is the responsibility of the AME to check the operation was the response.

An alert to the BGA produced no action. Amazing?

I bet 50% of pilots wpould fail a reversed sense aileron check.

John Firth

About 9 years ago, when I was getting my 604 going, I experienced the same thing when putting the ship together and checking the rigging on everything. Maybe I was lucky? I put the things back in the wings. I hooked up the controls. They not only moved backwards but were WAY out of rig (half travel, or there abouts).

I would be curious to know if any of you who have worked on these drives remembered quite a bit of pushrod re-adjusting after putting the correct driver on the correct side. They are very intersesting mechanisms. They don't care about up or down, but they do care about left or right!

BTW, I do a control motions check after assembly, before I do a positive control check with a helper. On the 604, there are 6 aileron connections to be made. 4 in the fuselage (pip pins through color coded clevis's to color coded bellcrank arms), and two at the center section-outer panel joint (in line ball and socket fittings).

Steve Leonard 604 S/N 8

It may be a cultural problem: In Europe, if you spill a cup of coffee, you're a fidget. In USA however, if I've been correctly informed, it makes you rich...

Seems so... If I go and work on aileron drives (what indeed does occur when maintaining a Calif...) it is quite straightforward not just to check that the thing works afterwards, but to actually measure the deflections to check that they're within specifications. No? If I don't do that, I shouldn't do maintainance on gliders, or at least I'd bite my tongue...

Don't feel bad,
On Knuckle type aileron drives, there are those that have installed the wrong hand and those who are going to.
The main thing is catching it before it gets out of the shop.
Don't forget that on certain other Glasflugel aircraft it is also possible to install the rudder actuator backwards. Resulting in right pedal left rudder.
I did an interesting repair on a Kestrel some years ago where a repair shop(Not my shop) let the aircraft get out of the door with the rudder going backwards, and the pilot also discovered it about 5 feet in the air. He almost got it down and stopped.