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Why Does My Tail Wag, No Matter What Gain Value Is Set?Updated 2 years ago

In the majority of cases, we have found that tail wag is caused by mechanical problems in the tail or the tail command redirection that is hard for several reasons, such as:

  • unbalanced and/or chipped tail blades
  • thrust bearings that are incorrectly mounted
  • crooked tail rotor shafts
  • tail pulley is slipping

The tail rotor spins at four to five times the speed of the main rotor system, so the centrifugal forces on the components are greater. As such, any imperfections are greatly magnified and translate into vibrations that are picked up by the iKON's gyro sensors and translated as movement that needs correction.

Additionally, the tail rotor servos are typically much faster than cyclic servos and make corrections much quicker - a wag could be a rapid correction and response to an unbalanced or mechanically rough system.

Please ensure that the tail pushrod is free and easy to move; a lot of tail wag problems have been corrected by a freely moving tail pushrod, especially on new helicopter builds.

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