Left Turning Tendency

For those who aren't familiar with how airplanes work in practice, the title refers to a characteristic behavior of single-engine airplanes when climbing, or when flying at a high angle of attack. I won't go into detail about this, as there are many available resources that explain it far better than I ever could, but the short form is that, in these situations, the plane will turn to the left unless you counter with right rudder.

The most common situation is when climbing at full or high power. Countering this tendency by pressing on the right rudder pedal is one of the very first things a student pilot learns to do. Once you level off and enter cruise flight, you can remove that pressure and the plane should fly straight; "should" being the operative word here.

As noted in an earlier post, my plane has always pulled to left a bit even in level cruise flight. Just how much varied a bit depending on the throttle setting. At about 2500 RPM, it barely pulled at all and I could just leave my feet relaxed unless I needed to apply some rudder while making a coordinated turn. And, as noted before, after the overhaul, my plane now pulls to the left noticeably more than it did. I need to apply some right rudder pressure even in level cruise flight or else I'm flying in a slip.

I'd already spoken about it with Preston at the shop. I was out there the other day to pay some of what I owe (in particular, the bill for the annual inspection) and I spoke with Preston again about it. I reiterated my opinion that a possible cause is that the nosewheel centering cable needs adjustment. He asked if it pulled to the left on the ground as well as in the air and, as I hadn't noticed that it did, I answered in the negative. Which does mean that it's less likely an issue with the nosewheel centering cable than something else.

However, today the weather was fantastic and I went flying for over two hours today. When I landed, I deliberately took my feet off the rudder pedals as I was rolling down the runway and it did, indeed, pull noticeably to the left. It's not bad enough that I can't counter it, in fact I had been doing so without even thinking about it, but it is definitely doing it. And this makes it more likely that it's the nosewheel centering cable. I'll keep flying it as is, and they'll look at it when it goes in for the first post-overhaul oil change.

As for the flight itself, it was very nice. The engine started right up again and it ran well the entire time. The issue I experienced during the mag check on the last flight did not recur. When I was out at the airport the other day I checked the oil and it was still at almost seven quarts. I'd say it was about 6.7 to 6.8 quarts. The oil consumption has dropped dramatically since the first post-overhaul flight, and I haven't had to put any in for the last three flights. I didn't check it after today's flight as the engine was hot, but I'll probably go out there again this coming Friday and check it then. Even if it's close to what it was before today's flight, I'll probably go ahead and put a quart in just to be safe.

I didn't take any photos during today's flight because they wouldn't have been anything new, and I wanted to focus on flying the plane and enjoying it.