I just tonight read a discussion from 2020 concerning limited aileron authority of a particular 701.

Because of the flying that I did for money, I have about 10,000 (thousand) T&L, but I’m willing to call it 8,000. The vast majority are in tailwheel airplanes. Just saying, not recommending getting into these situations.

I am not suggesting that anyone else handle things the way that I handled this, I’m just pointing out that there are ways to handle things if you practice and keep flying the airplane.

About 3 years ago I bought a 701 over in Dothan, Alabama, and flew it back to Hawthorne field in Southeast Texas. I bucked a 20mph headwind all the way. 8.4 hours over 3 days.

When I arrived at Hawthorne the wind was 90* to the paved runway, 130/310, about 4,000 ft. by 75ft. (if I remember the width correctly) Mature pine trees are about 100ft west (upwind) of the runway, so there would be turbulence from that obstruction. As I lined up on final for runway 13, I decided to keep the flaps up since that would give me a higher wing loading. I discovered that I didn’t have enough aileron to keep the 701 flying straight down the runway. I tried two approaches on 13, then tried what could be a grass runway that was nearly directly into the wind. The grass was almost waist deep on the non-runway. This would be only my 5th landing in the 701 and I was beginning to wonder if the plane would survive.

The trees on the downwind side of the approach end of runway 31 are farther from the runway. I flew my approach to runway 31 as if landing on the non-existent (unless considered very short and wide) runway 23. This reduced the cross wind component to something the plane would handle and the ground speed to about 30mph. My spot was where the taxiway enters the runway, adding to the width/length available. As soon as the nose wheel came down just past the centerline I turned straight down 31 - no problem.

The point? If you mess up and need to land with a very high cross wind, there might be something you can do to mitigate the situation. 

Perhaps more importantly, a short time later I discovered that when the builder had converted to electric flaps, he had not properly adjusted the actuator travel and with full UP flaps the top aileron bellcranks were solid against the bottom of the baggage area. Yes, I mean zero aileron movement. Thank goodness I had not raised the flaps that far. I redid all that with mechanical stops at maximum flap extension of 15* and max retraction as per the Zenith instructions. I also put the flap actuator on its own circuit breaker. If your Zenith seems to lack control authority, check all the settings, especially if you didn’t build it.

There had been numerous previous condition inspections with the last one or two signed off by the A&P from whom I bought the plane. Last week or the week before, I looked at the log book data of a plane for sale on Barnstormers. The same A&P in Dothan, Alabama, had signed off one or two condition inspections on that plane, but there had been 4 or 5 by someone else since. Be carful what you buy and how you fly. Practice, practice, practice. That gives you a reason to fly and it is non-fattening.