Most, if not all, airplanes have gust locks for ailerons and elevators. However, quite some of them do not have gust locks for rudders. Is this observation correct? Why is it this way?
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Most, if not all, airplanes have gust locks for ailerons and elevators. However, quite some of them do not have gust locks for rudders. Is this observation correct? Why is it this way?
Most aircraft these days have the rudder and the nose wheel or tail wheel interconnected. If there was a gust lock installed and the aircraft towed or moved without releasing or removing the lock, it could result in damage to the aircraft. There are tail wheel aircraft that have spring loaded steering locks that wouldn't have this problem, but they usually take a condsiderable amount of movement to overcome the locks. Once you get into the larger aircraft...L-10, DC-3 and so on, have manual steering locks on the tail wheels, so they often have external rudder locks. The L-10 that I used to crew had all external control locks and to tow it, I just had to verify the tail wheel steering lock was released and it did not matter if the external locks were in place. One of the aircraft that I work on these days, has to have the nose wheel scissor link pin removed when we tow. The other models don't.
In RV's it's a problem as the rudder is not interconnected. So most do one of 2 things: either add a pin system associated with the rudder stops or immobilize the rudder pedals (typically with a setup that also immobilizes the stick which provides gust locks for all the control surfaces).