I think that heel brakes are a good alternative. I had never used heel brakes before though so I really had no idea how easy they were to get to. I also had no tailwheel experience when I first did the brakes and I thought that I would need quick and easy access to the brakes. Now that I have some tailwheel time I realize that you pretty much want to stay off the brakes unless you are going straight and have everything under control. Being too anxious on the brakes is more likely to cause a ground loop than to prevent one.
With what I know now I would seriously consider using hand brakes if I did it again. My original thinking was that I always needed on hand on the stick and one on the throttle so that didn't leave a hand for the brakes. Now I realize that when it is time to stop, the throttle should be at idle so that frees up my right hand for the brakes. When I need differential braking while taxiing I should be going slow enough that I can let go of the stick and reach over with my left hand to the brakes. I could of even saved myself $400 for the hydraulic brakes and left the cable operated drum brakes on and ran the cables to two levers off the forward spar. The main reason for the hydraulic conversion was to put the brakes on the pedals. Anyway, that is some food for thought for everyone else contemplating how to do theirs. Now back to what I have now, I looked at Mark's site on the rudder pedal section and as usual found answers to all my original questions. I printed his template and the pivot point of the pedal is only about 1 1/4" from the clevis attachment point on the master cylinder. He is probably getting the same braking with half of the pedal force. I am going to shorten my arm and I should have pretty effective brakes when I am done. When the brakes are bled you really don't need much throw at all so you are better off with a short lever arm for more leverage. -------Original Message------- From: Dana Overall <bo12...@hotmail.com> Sent: 09/08/03 06:46 AM To: kr...@mylist.net Subject: Re: KR>rudder pedals > > Brian, just a little food for thought. I used those same cylinders on my KR. Short of fabricating new pedals incorporating a pivoting cylinder, I chose to remove the cylinders from the assembly in an effort to allieve the pressure on the rudder horns and the various tie down points as the cable moved aft. I had a pulley near the front that I wanted to relieve pressure from also. My sometimes convaluted thinking was at some point the rudder system would fail before the braking system failed, opposite of your situation so far though. I thought I would rather have rudder than braking. The current system may work just fine, but I just didn't like putting, what I considered, undue stress on the cable system which had nothing to do with what I wanted to achieve.......and that was braking, not rudder pressure. My solution at the time was to remove the cylinders and mount them with the round foot pad pointing aft, between the two pedals. I drilled two holes in the firewall and mounted the brackets to hold the cylinders firewall forward. A byproduct of this, I was able to remove brake lines..thus brake fluid, from the fuselage. I mounted them a little high so I could heel the rudder pedals but get to the brakes with my toes. Had to be a little pigeon toed but it worked. This way I was able to get full compression of the piston, use of the rudder with no unnessesary demand on the calbes and had very good braking. Man, that got long winded when my initial reply was going be, "Hey Brian, I mounted mine between the pedals.........worked for me".:-) Dana Overall 1999 & 2000 National KR Gathering host Richmond, KY RV-7 slider/fuselage, Imron black, "Black Magic" Finish kit ordered!! Buying Instruments. Hangar flying my Dynon. http://rvflying.tripod.com do not archive _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself with MSN Messenger 6.0 -- download now! http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_general _______________________________________________ see KRnet list details at http://www.krnet.org/instructions.html >
