On Sunday, I had a look at the dual sticks assembly on my KR2, and I found enough rust here and there to decide it needed a good repaint; so, I removed the complete assembly from the KR2 to bring it home.
Man, that was a mission! Because there was not enough clearance around the screws that hold the Nylon blocks to the main spar to use a socket. Took me forever to unscrew. Bugger! Anyway, my dual stick is pretty much the same design as Mark Langford's, with a torque tube and a rod that links both sticks at the bottom. I was thinking that it is a shame that it is made of steel, because it sure is heavy; aluminum would be lighter and look nicer, but welding aluminum always is a big issue. Then I realized that to make it, you don't really need to weld anything. And this applies to any torque tube. All you have to do is to order ready-made aluminum flanges that fit around the tube. Then, to make the tube guides (stops), you would simply rivet the flanges to the tubes. You could also Epoxy glue the flange to the tube before you rivet, for safety. To make the horn, you would cut an aluminum plate that would match the flange flat size (rim) plus the protruding horn , and rivet it to the flange. The stick attachment would be made with two plates each, that would be rivetted to the tube. I talked to one of my colleagues who is an experienced builder, and he told me that actually, several European designs use torque tubes built more or less that way. Probably not worth rebuilding the part for this KR2, but this is something I will definitely try on my next aircraft ;-) Serge Vidal KR2 "Kilimanjaro Cloud" Paris, france
