Question about the rudder pedals on a Fairey Swordfish

[pogotc]

I'm attempting to create a 3D model of a Swordfish and next on my list is to do the rudder pedals, which I figured would be straight forward but I'm a bit confused after looking at some photos. My understanding was that it's fairly standard that if you push the left pedal forwards for instance, the right one will come back towards you, and vice versa. But looking at the some photos of the pedals in a Swordfish I don't see how that would work as there's a big support beam blocking the pedals from coming forwards and what looks like a big panel that would stop them moving backwards too.

Here's an example photo:

Has anyone seen rudder pedals like this before and, if so, can you describe how they move? All I can think is they move up and down which seems really odd and completely unlike other planes of the era.

 

[mjfur]

It looks like each pedal assembly attaches and pivots in the middle which would only move the rudder pedal being depressed. The other pedal would remain neutral. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/189995678008984206/

 

[buffnut453]

It looks like each pedal assembly attaches and pivots in the middle which would only move the rudder pedal being depressed. The other pedal would remain neutral. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/189995678008984206/

View attachment 768203

Bearing in mind that both pedals are connected to the rudder via cables, then both pedals would move if one was depressed...unless the control cable was incredibly stretchy.

 

[pogotc]

Bearing in mind that both pedals are connected to the rudder via cables, then both pedals would move if one was depressed...unless the control cable was incredibly stretchy.

this is the thing that was confusing me about a mechanism where each pedal moves independently, you can see the cables a bit closer in this video:
View: https://youtu.be/Bx-ysOGUicI?t=871 and they just look like normal cables to me. But it looks like each side of the rudder has two cables, which I assumed was just for redundancy, but maybe that plays a part in the mechanism of allowing each pedal to move separately? Although who knows what happens if you depress both pedals at once...

 

[Wurger]

Actually it seems that the construction there was more complex. . IMHO there was the rudder bar but slightly down and behind the arms with pedals. The control cables were attached to the bar not to the pedals If you have a look at top the support of the mechanizm you may notice that there were three pivots attached. The horizontal bar ( pipe ) had also its supports like the pedal arms. The pedals seem to be joined with the bar endings with something that looks like the actuators/swivels or screws that allowed to adjust the pedals according to the pilot height.

and here is the view from the top ...

 

[pogotc]

thanks for the response and for those photos as I've not seen those before, so in the 1937 manual they have this:

which I think matches up with what you're describing, the bit that pivots is further back so it does work like a conventional rudder pedal mechanism. I wasn't sure when I first saw this image as I've run into a few situations now where things have completely changed between when the manual was published and them going into service in the war, so I don't really trust what I see in there anymore, but also in all the photos it really looks like the foot rest is attached directly to the rudder bar, it's so hard to see the "arm".

 

[Wurger]

Yes that's exactly I thought. Now I can see that better. These pedal actuators/swivels or screws as I called them above, were joined to the rudder bar. What is more these were the square pipes in the cross section. What could mean that the foot rests had the metal bars/sticks put into them. Thanks to that it was possible to adjust the pedals to the pilot's height by sliding in or sliding out. The bolts that joined the two separate arms with the actuators were also locking pins for the foot rest bars inside. In the way the pedals could be still of the same length even if a pilot pressed them strongly.