PA32R-301 Trim Issues and Elevator Feedback?

[Alex Turner]

Hi there,

First time poster here so thanks for having me. I fly a 32R-301 out of Sydney, Australia and have recently been having issues with forward trim which only appears to rear it's head when the aircraft is reasonably loaded (close to MTOW). There are two issues which I'm not sure are connected but definitely seem unusual and was looking for thoughts as to what it could be. The first being, when the aircraft is close to MTOW with the COG well within the envelope, trimming the aircraft full FWD still requires forward pressure on the stick coming in for final at 80kts (and quite a bit). This could be a misconfiguration of the jackscrew.

Yesterday I flew the aircraft and on entering cloud with some updrafts and turbulence, the control column was moving on it's own, perhaps up to 1"-1.5" in movement and moving at about 3-5 oscillations a second. It was a very unusual sensation to experience and enough to downgrade VFR and return to my home airport after 10 mins of flight.

On feeling the stabilator on the ground, it appears firm bearings smooth. Where would you look?

 

[dmspilot]

1"-1.5" in movement and moving at about 3-5 oscillations a second.

It sounds like flutter, which is typically in the range of 3-7 cycles per second.

 

[Clip4]

The stabilator trim is out of rig. Maybe a cable issue. The oscillation is the stabilator stalling.

 

[Alex Turner]

Thanks guys, I think you're right on the flutter front - scary but definitely an interesting experience. Our current engineer is very much a interative change and test vs a measured calibration - perhaps we need to start with a re-rigging