Quote Originally Posted by jiott View Post
Since the only benefit of the turnbuckles is to 'center' the rudder, a comment on this may help. The rudder is in reality 'centered' by the slipstream, not by your feet, so no fine tuning of rudder trim is possible with cable adjustment. If any rudder trim is required it must be done with a trim tab added to the rudder trailing edge. The turnbuckles would only be useful to center the pedals when the rudder centers itself. It is fairly easy to adequately center the pedals with the rudder when you swage the cables. I doubt that small fractions of an inch error matter much or could be felt by your feet. Nothing wrong with turnbuckles but I adhere to the KISS principle.

Jim
I totally agree with Jim. I have seen the turnbuckles on several Kitfoxes over the years and always wondered the reason. From my sailing days, I can see the advantage of turnbuckles in a closed system like the stays and shrouds supporting the mast, but in our open rudder cable system, to me it is just more wieght. With my Kitfox, my feet react to what my eyes see and I don't think they have much of a clue as to exactly how far they are from the firewall.