Yoke position on the ground

[blaine beaven]

Hello all. 1978 J model. When parked on the ground, with the rudder lined up with the vertical fin, my yoke is rotated to the right about 30 degrees. It is responsive to rudder pedal movements, and goes straight once there is airflow over both ailerons. 
 

is this something to worry about? Does anyone know the cause? I’m doing some avionics and panel upgrades soon, and I’ve been looking at a lot of panel pictures and realizing mine is an outlier in this regard. Note - it has been like this since I bought it in 2013.

 

Thanks!

[N201MKTurbo]

There is a rudder aileron interconnect in the belly. It doesn’t have any adjustment per se, but if some of the other rigging was out of whack, it might do that. I would check the interconnect springs, one may have come loose or broken. They are in the belly below the co-pilots seat.

[PT20J]

It would seem to be hard to get that much deflection with misrigging without the airplane flying oddly. I would suspect a broken or missing interconnect spring. If you move the ailerons stop to stop on the ground, you should feel the springs pulling equally in each direction. 

EDIT: And, I'm sure Rich meant to say that it is located under the pilot's seat. 

[blaine beaven]

In case anyone was curious as to the outcome of this, during the annual this week we checked the interconnect springs. Neither are broken or weak. We swapped them to see if it made a difference and it made no difference. My mechanic presumes that the cause of the yoke "drooping" is just the nature of the geometry of the linkages and the interconnect in my particular plane. as soon as any pressure is applied to the rudder pedals the yoke centers immediately. 

This seems to be more a "cosmetic" issue as the plane flies fine. But if anyone else has had this happen or any other ideas I am happy to hear them. Otherwise, I'm not going to chase it down much further. 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, blaine beaven said:

In case anyone was curious as to the outcome of this, during the annual this week we checked the interconnect springs. Neither are broken or weak. We swapped them to see if it made a difference and it made no difference. My mechanic presumes that the cause of the yoke "drooping" is just the nature of the geometry of the linkages and the interconnect in my particular plane. as soon as any pressure is applied to the rudder pedals the yoke centers immediately. 

This seems to be more a "cosmetic" issue as the plane flies fine. But if anyone else has had this happen or any other ideas I am happy to hear them. Otherwise, I'm not going to chase it down much further. 

Where is the rudder pointing when the nosewheel is pointing straight forward on the ground?    Myself and a number of others here have some right rudder deflection when the nosewheel points straight, and the yoke still stays fairly level in that condition on mine.    So I think if I lined up the rudder to be straight the yoke might tilt a bit, like yours.

I've never noticed any operational issues because of it.    You could try moving the nosewheel steering with the tow bar until the yoke is level and see where the rudder is.   Still probably doesn't make much difference, though... 

 

[Fritz1]

as stated before check yoke alignment with nose wheel straight and then check with airplane trimmed to fly straight, if there is a slight misalignment of the yoke it may be corrected within limits by adjusting the length of the aileron pushrod on the yoke