Cable vs wire leadouts?

[Dennis Toth]

Guys,
What are your thoughts on cable or solids leadouts? I have used both but am leaning toward cable because they seem to be more forgiving if the ship yaws a little leaving the controls smoother. The solids have caused some binding and a little hedge hop in level flight and coming out of corners. What say you?

Best,      DennisT

[James_Mynes]

Solid leadouts always seem to get 'twanged' on something, and once they get bent you can get binding through the guide. I'm not a big fan of them.

[Motorman]

It's funny how a hard point handle works better but you have 3' of cable in the wing, what's up with that.


MM

[Steve Helmick]

Solid leadouts always seem to get 'twanged' on something, and once they get bent you can get binding through the guide. I'm not a big fan of them.

^^^^^^^  At all.  Steve

[Phil Krankowski]

It's funny how a hard point handle works better but you have 3' of cable in the wing, what's up with that.


MM

60 feet of cable to 3 feet of different cable to hard points again!

Phil

[Brett Buck]

It's funny how a hard point handle works better but you have 3' of cable in the wing, what's up with that.

  You are not flexing the leadouts, they are a straight pull. The problem with cable handles is not the linear stretch of the cable, it's that you are bending them as the controls move. Using thicker cable in your cable handle makes the effect worse, instead of better, because it much less compliant in stretch but is also harder to bend.

   Even if it wasn't like that, the effect is cumulative, so any compliance you remove anywhere helps.

    Brett

[Randy Cuberly]

It's funny how a hard point handle works better but you have 3' of cable in the wing, what's up with that.


MM

Yes but it's very heavy cable and doesn't stretch much (nothing like the .015 or .018 flying lines) providing the terminations at the bellcrank are supported inside aluminum or brass tubing through the curvature of the bellcrank terminations, and eyelet terminations at the outside of the wing wrapped very tightly inside the cable loops.  

The problematic stretch in the large cable of a cable type handle comes from the bends of the cable around the adjustment mechanism and the terminations for the lines.

There probably is a little more stretch than with solid wire leadouts but in my opinion the reduced friction through the leadout guide more than makes up for that in control predictibility.

I have used both on several airplanes and definitely always run into stability issues due to friction at the leadout guide with solids.

Randy Cuberly
PS:  I see that Brett beat me to the jist of the answer.  At least you know now!!!

[John Sunderland]

Hard point handle! Use it. Here is how I know.... and it is not funny... but honest. PW was going to WP for a work project from W to WP. He put out a feeler saying he would be in the neighborhood. I bit and he showed up! It was on a somewhat blustery day, pre Nats in 2003 at CMH. As I fired up PA61 he walked directly across the circle past my handle, inspected it and gave me the signal across his throat to kill the engine, a "kill it" look as he was headed across the circle.

It was a heavy 18 strand braided wire handle, brand new, less than two weeks old from new from my best friend and mentor.....with about five or six unfrayed wires left. Lets just skip the stretch  issue. Along the same lines...all puns intended, I watched Bobby H fade and gently loop his 96 ship after two passes into the pavement at the 96 Nats from a solid LO breakage.

[Brett Buck]

It was a heavy 18 strand braided wire handle, brand new, less than two weeks old from new from my best friend and mentor.....with about five or six unfrayed wires left. Lets just skip the stretch  issue.

   Absolutely, it's a good idea from a reliability/durability standpoint even disregarding the improvement in control feel. I think the thicker the cable the worse it is, from both aspects.  The very small (.027 or .032 or so) cable that came on the handles originally lasted a pretty long time. Later, we started using 1/16 and it seemed to fail even more quickly, not to mention the feel reduction. Makes sense, bending it through the same angle or to the same radius creates double the stress as you double the diameter.

    Brett

[Howard Rush]

Hard point handle! Use it. Here is how I know.... and it is not funny... but honest. PW was going to WP for a work project from W to WP. He put out a feeler saying he would be in the neighborhood. I bit and he showed up! It was on a somewhat blustery day, pre Nats in 2003 at CMH. As I fired up PA61 he walked directly across the circle past my handle, inspected it and gave me the signal across his throat to kill the engine, a "kill it" look as he was headed across the circle.

It was a heavy 18 strand braided wire handle, brand new, less than two weeks old from new from my best friend and mentor.....with about five or six unfrayed wires left. Lets just skip the stretch  issue. Along the same lines...all puns intended, I watched Bobby H fade and gently loop his 96 ship after two passes into the pavement at the 96 Nats from a solid LO breakage.

You are lucky that he didn't hide your handle.  Sometimes he does that.

[Ward Van Duzer]

Dennis,

Somebody always has to have a contrary opinion! While I am no "pro", I have been using 1/32" music wire leadouts since 1951 without (to my knowledge) any incident. With careful bending with round nose pliers (no kinks) they are much easier to deal with terminations, don't fray, less apt to tangle and I like the way they rattle in the back of the car on the way to the field! And by the way, I think if you check with Bob you'll find that in his never ending search to save weight he used wire of less than 1/32" on that failure.

But then again, I'm from New Jersey!


Ward

[John Park]

The only times I've ever had my lines bind were with a kit KeilKraft 'Spectre' (British), built using the supplied piano wire leadouts, which were .032 or thereabouts (20 SWG).  I used the same lines later on several different models, all with flexible leadouts, and had no trouble.  I can only suppose the 'solids' conduct more vibration down the lines.