G-V flight crew reported an electric pitch trim anomaly; resulting in a return to the departure airport; utilizing manual pitch trim.
Synopsis
G-V flight crew reported an electric pitch trim anomaly; resulting in a return to the departure airport; utilizing manual pitch trim.
Narrative
Upon climbout I noticed excessive forward force required to maintain target pitch. I noticed the electric pitch trim was unresponsive. I asked the non flying pilot to check the force required to maintain target pitch. He concurred. He continued to fly the aircraft. He reduced power to slow the plane and reduce the tail forces. After that was accomplished the aircraft was manageable using the manual trim wheel. I [requested priority handling] to ATC and asked for return vectors for the airport. We elected to climb an additional 1000 ft. to give us a buffer from terrain. We proceeded to fly a long downwind in the valley away from terrain and populated areas. This gave us time to trouble shoot and run checklists. After agreeing to return to the airport I set up the ILS approach for Runway XXL the longest Runway. We also briefed our overweight landing condition and transfer of controls after landing. We configured and managed the jet using manual trim. We landed at 1.2 vertical acceleration and less than -400 FPM. We taxied in to the FBO under our own power without assistance and shutdown without incident.
Second reporter narrative
We took off from Runway XX; during the climb the pilot flying noticed the trim appeared to not be working. He initially thought it was a jammed flight control. He asked me to check mine and I noticed and enormous amount of pressure required to lower the nose of the plane but I was able to control the plane. I elected to slow the plane while at the same time he was pulling out the AFM. Since we had no message on the EICAS and were not 100% sure yet what it was; I continued to fly. I used the trim wheel to bring the plane back to a manageable pressure and told him we would be going back to ZZZ. He [requested priority handling] and we got vectors downwind. We wanted a long final and to be away from the city and population for configuration changes. After coming to the conclusion this was only the trim not working and we could use the trim wheel for all our changes we asked for XXL because we were over weight and it's the longest Runway. He ran all the checklist and got us set up to use the ILS to help with stabilization. We briefed the approach and that we would do the handover of controls as we passed 60 kt as we used to do in the airlines. We started to configure about 20 miles off the end of XXL and came in on a very stabilized approach. Right before touchdown I asked him to note the VSI. We slowed and taxied off the Runway with no incident and 1.2 on the vertical accelerometer.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.