Squeezing Ailerons

[TomVal]

Originally Posted by redhawk

Hi Bad Shiela...
I know all about crimping the ailerons trailing edge as I experienced very severe "aileron snap" before having knowledge of this.
You want to crimp the "light" wing aileron trailing edge with a pair of duckbill vice grips. Set the vice grip to barely perceptibly squeeze the trailing edge. Maintain that setting and move the duckbill vicegrip all along that edge then fly it and see. It doesn't take much to make a big difference!
It helps to put some thick tape on the duckbill vicegrip just to be easy on your paint.
Good luck!

Good advice. The proper unit of pressure to apply is 1/2 unit of hog's breath pressure then go test fly.

[wrongway john]

Originally Posted by wrongway john

Van's article on heavy wings says one can always use a wedge under the aileron if the squeezing didn't work out. It didn't say which aileron. Would it go on the aileron with the heavy or light wing?

To answer my own question:

I found out through a lot of searching on this site, that you place the wedge on the underside of the aileron on the lighter wing, in case others want to try this, and if you don?t want to squeeze the aileron. Not sure why Van's article didn't state this.

Anyway, my problem is solved, and it was so easy. First, I tried the aileron squeeze on the light wing which is my left. I only did about nine inches worth, as other recommended, just go slow and try not to overdue it and not do that long of a span at first. I didn?t notice any effect the first time.

The second time, I squeezed slightly more, but this time, it seemed to make my heavier wing (right wing) even heavier. With a passenger and fuel equal, I have to use all of my trim now, along with some light stick pressure that I hadn?t had to do before. Not sure what gives.

I tried to measure my ailerons thickness to see if I could quantify it a bit. I took some dial calipers and set it to .300. I gently slid it along both ailerons. With the heavy wing, the calipers would go in about 3/8th?s of an inch. On the light wing, only about an 1/8th of inch. This does seem to indicate my light wing aileron is thicker, and needs to be squeezed. After the results of the first test, not sure I wanted to try it again though.

But as I was saying, while reading through threads, I noticed another who said he used the wooden wedge, but put it on the underside of the lighter aileron. Mine already had a wooden wedge that was 4 and a half inches long that was placed on the heavy wing!? Go figure. I decided, I would take it off, but didn?t expect much. But wow, it did the trick! Finally, she flies true and straight, and ball is in center. With full fuel on both tanks, and just me, I had to use a little bit of trim on the right, which seems about right with just me in there. I?ll do a passenger with about my weight next, to see how close it is, but what a major improvement already. Why in heck that wedge was on the heavier wing, I have no idea, and don?t understand at all why it was ever placed there.

Just hope this helps others that may be experiencing similar problems.

[Bad Sheila]

I squeezed the light wing aileron "just a tiny little bit" and whoa, it became the heavy wing. I then did the other wing and now it flies beautifully and seems to land easier. It worked out OK because both each aileron has an even thickness along the full length of the aileron.

I used 2 wooden popsicle sticks and a pair of vicegrips as per you guys suggestions... thanks.

I am now a happy little vegemite. LOL