Question Centering the ball

[Neal]

Sometimes I have to lift my feet off the pedals as I tend to push harder on one side and obviously the lightweight cub responds to these little pressures. I lift my feet to check the ball and the tracking of the plane. I don't know how accurate "the ball" is but it seems to have a slight bias to the left of center which drives my OCD'ness crazy. I've been bending, or at least I think I am, the trim tab on the rudder to the right to help it kick left rudder. Yesterday I had to maintain constant pressure on the left rudder to move the ball right to center.

What are others seeing as far as ball centering with feet off the pedals? Is RPM a factor? Also check how your plane tracks by picking a point in the distance and see if the plane tracks straight or not.

 

[Cactus Charlie]

There was a disagreement between the slip balls of my G5, which I installed, and the PFD. It was slight but it bugged me. After I replaced the GSU 25 and performed the required alignment the disagreement was gone.

The slip ball will have an error if the GSU 25 calibration was not performed with the aircraft at exactly zero roll angle. I adjusted the roll attitude with small changes in tire pressure.

Feet off and stick free my FX-3 flies wings level with zero slip. I have not noticed any change with power but I have probably only flown stick free and feet off at normal cruise speed.