Aileron trim for RV-12

Little Bird II is trimmed for me and about 2/3 fuel. With full fuel and a passenger she really wants to go right. After thinking about it for quite a while I bought Van's RV-7 manual aileron trim kit and fouynd a way to make it work. I apologize for photo quality-- camera didn't focus where I wanted)--but think you'll be able to get the idea.
Instead of mounting the handle between the seats where our flap handle is I mounted it on the vertical face of the seat floor, below the electrical output.

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The "L-shaped" actuator lever was too short and too high to connect to the sticks without biding on the lightening hols in the structure so I cut it off and riveted on a new one made from mild steel. Guys who can weld would probably do that. It extends the arm down just a bit more than an inch and moves the connecting holes back about 1.5 inches.

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The springs were connected to this actuating arm

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Then instead of using safety wire as Van;s suggest, I made turnbuckles from Du-Bro threaded rod and clevises (R/C airplane section of your hobby shop), connected those to the springs and then to the sticks with safety wire. Checked clearance with stick in all four corners and flaps in all three positions.

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Yesterday I had 16 gallons and a 210 pounds passenger (I weight 165) and we could trim out hands off. A really sharp stick input will pull the trim off the setting but it's no problem to re-trim. Stick forces are increased slightly by the springs but not having to hold left stick makes up for it.

Wayne 120241/143WM at 311 hours

Hey Wayne, your installation looks great!! Curious though, do you have Van's fixed rudder trim tab installed??

Tom

Well I have the original wedge-type

rudder trim and LBII needed about 1.6 wedges. I finally decided that the most likely reason for the wide variation in amount of wedge required was that we early builders had to use pipes, sledgehammers, and vises to open and bend those (*&(*^^ longerons. I suspect my fuselage isn't precisely square and therefore the tail surfaces are slightly canted.

Anyway, the trim installation was done for the variation in right-side weight and works pretty well.

Wayne 120241/143WM

Like you Wayne, I am also an early builder (120119), and I spent a lot of time, and effort to get the longerons as true as possible. On the first flight, the ball was not well caged. I was able to get the ball centered with Van's rudder trim. I also still had a slightly heavy right wing. By working on the trailing edge of the wing skins, and getting a better alignment with the flaperons, I have improved it to minimal. .....Tom

yankee-flyer said:

I finally decided that the most likely reason for the wide variation in amount of wedge required was that we early builders had to use pipes, sledgehammers, and vises to open and bend those (*&(*^^ longerons.

Click to expand...

I know about longeron dies for bending, but is there another tool now available for opening the longerons?

Thanks!

A hex nut socket and a vise worked well for opening the longerons. It should be a fairly sturdy vise if you go that route as there is rumor that at least one Ohioan has broken a vise doing this ;-)

At one point someone was selling bent longerons.

I don't know if they still do, but I thought that was an options Van's should have offered. But then, they only built a couple.

Read this thread for doing the longerons successfully without the dies.
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=69024