NTSB Wants Cub Rudder Post Replacement AD

The NTSB wants the FAA to issue an AD for old Pipers after two incidents in which the rudder posts snapped and the top section of the rudder folded into a roughly horizontal position. The failure obviously had a big effect on the controllability of the aircraft involved, a PA-12 Super Cruiser and a PA-14 Family Cruiser. The NTSB has recommended the FAA require replacement of the original rudder posts with a stronger and more resilient piece of pipe. Most Pipers of that era have been extensively repaired, rebuilt and modified over the last 70 to 80 years but many still have the original rudder post, which is part number 40622. The same part was used in most of the early model Pipers so the AD could include thousands of airplanes.

In the first Alaska incident on June 8 of 2020, an instructor and the owner of the PA-12 on floats had just taken off when the pilot told the instructor the controls “felt strange.” The instructor took over and didn’t feel safe trying to turn around so wrestled the balky airplane to a safe landing at the airport from which they’d taken off earlier. A bit more than a year later the pilot of a PA-14 on floats reported he needed “a very large right rudder input” to keep the plane straight and level and he, too, was able to land safely.