I was in the cockpit ready to start the engine. I flipped the switch to raise the flaps and looked over to verify they were moving. To my horror the left flap was jammed against the outboard top skin and was bending it into an horrible looking mess.
Now, part of my paint prep will be replacing the left outboard top wing skin.
This is apparently not all that rare of an occurance as Van's tech. told me they routinely raise the flaps up from full down position a few degrees before letting people get in.
There needs to be enough overlap distance of the flap up under the skins so that leaning into the flap with your leg when they are fully down, doesn't let the flap skin jam against the top skin. I had to rework the bottom inboard part of my flaps a bit to allow them to be rigged a little higher, with a little more overlap to prevent this from happening again.
I originally rigged them per everything I could read about the subject. I used the tooling holes in the ends of the wing and temporarily mounted the flaps and airlerons when drilling the rear spar holes so that everything would be nicely lined up, and everything did line up very well and my wing incidence is dead on, the airplane flies straight and true.
The bottom line is that a priority needs to be placed on that skin overlap so the flaps cannot jam and cause this kind of damage.
This is not a danger in flight as air loads will keep the flaps flexed toward up position. Only a problem when raising them on the ground. Manual flaps would also have prevented this from happening. That flap motor is strong.
Randy C
RV7A
Now, part of my paint prep will be replacing the left outboard top wing skin.
This is apparently not all that rare of an occurance as Van's tech. told me they routinely raise the flaps up from full down position a few degrees before letting people get in.
There needs to be enough overlap distance of the flap up under the skins so that leaning into the flap with your leg when they are fully down, doesn't let the flap skin jam against the top skin. I had to rework the bottom inboard part of my flaps a bit to allow them to be rigged a little higher, with a little more overlap to prevent this from happening again.
I originally rigged them per everything I could read about the subject. I used the tooling holes in the ends of the wing and temporarily mounted the flaps and airlerons when drilling the rear spar holes so that everything would be nicely lined up, and everything did line up very well and my wing incidence is dead on, the airplane flies straight and true.
The bottom line is that a priority needs to be placed on that skin overlap so the flaps cannot jam and cause this kind of damage.
This is not a danger in flight as air loads will keep the flaps flexed toward up position. Only a problem when raising them on the ground. Manual flaps would also have prevented this from happening. That flap motor is strong.
Randy C
RV7A
