RV-6A "Rigging"

As I am an older pilot, my approach to my return to flying (flew when I was much younger) was to buy a flying RV-6A to gain experience while I worked on deciding what I wanted to build, and to have something to fly while building. For this older RV-6A I have been slowly fixing it up & rebuiding some parts, such as changing wheel pants and fairings to the newer pressure recovery type. I have about 150 hours in the plane.

This plane seems to have a "rigging" problem and I have had other RV pilots comment that it seemed "heavy". I am interested in doing as much as I can to "lighten" it and correct any problems that are possible to be corrected. It currently has trims tabs on right aileron and the rudder and I can see that the elevators are not aligned.

I would apprecaite any inputs from others as to everything that should be checked. I'm not opposed to buying/building some parts if necessary. Might be good practice.

Thanks in advance.

The First Thing I Would Do

The first thing I would do is check the rigging and CG. Level the plane fwd and aft and side to side using the canopy sill as the reference plane and find out what you have. If you do not have the plans set and drawings I would contact Van's and see if you can buy them. The fwd and aft angle of the horizontal stabilizer is controlled by a shim so that is easy to correct if you find that wrong but everything else will be more difficult. If the wing incidence angle was not checked and clamped in before the rear spar attachment holes were drilled that is a big pain. When I built mine the wings did not naturally fall into place when I was completing this step. The right wing was good but the left one required lifting the trailing edge of the wing quite a bit. There was great hesitation on my part questioning the measurement but after measuring many times I did what had to be done to get both wings rigged at the correct angle. The elevator control horn weldments were incorrect in my kit resulting in a large gap that could let that part of the rigging get sloppy. I reported the problem to the factory and said I was going to fill the gaps between the horns with large washers. The man there acknowledged that some of the weldments were wrong and recommended two things: (1) make two special spacers rather than stacking gap filling washers and (2) add a spacer between the horns between the elevator rotation axis and the pushrod attach point and and bolt it in to lock the alignment. Two other possible source of rigging difficulty are the flaps and ailerons. If the original builder picked up the kit at the factory there was no packing crate accompanying the kit. This is where Van's provided the airfoil template which was essential for making the tool for rigging the flaps and ailerons. I was lucky in that I had bought wing extending aluminum tip tanks from Farn Reed in Grants Pass, OR (no longer available I'm told) and I was able to trace the full chord airfoil and build my rigging tool from plywood I bought at Home Depot (a big two piece affair hinged at the front with a single bolt). If these components are rigged too high, the wing airfoil would have a reflex that would reduce lift resulting in a "heavy" feeling airplane. To cut this short I think you have got to find out precisely what you are dealing with and then decide what you want to do about this already flying airplane. The correction can easily end up being worse than the original problem even if you correctly diagnose the original problem.

Bob Axsom

6-A Rigging

Bill, You do not mention where in TX you are located but if in the Dallas or Houston area there are people that would be able to look at your plane and give you some advice. Jay Pratt in Dallas and Doug Knab in Houston are multiple RV projecteers. I would fly in and ask them. Jay is very helpful as is Doug. Doug is pretty busy and Jay may b e too. A call would be a good idea. Bob Evans in the Austin area also is a multiple helper/builder.

gvgoff99 said:

Bill, You do not mention where in TX you are located but if in the Dallas or Houston area there are people that would be able to look at your plane and give you some advice. Jay Pratt in Dallas and Doug Knab in Houston are multiple RV projecteers. I would fly in and ask them. Jay is very helpful as is Doug. Doug is pretty busy and Jay may b e too. A call would be a good idea. Bob Evans in the Austin area also is a multiple helper/builder.

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I may do that. Right now I am in Colorado. Later (snow time), I'll be spending more time in Texas near Austin.

Guru near Austin

Bill, The Lockhart, TX airport is a good place to go to find someone very familiar with RV's. It is pretty close to Austin. The fellow to ask for is Ted Jones. (In my earlier message I mistakenly put Bob Evans who is an RV'er in Midland.) Ted is listed in the RV white pages that Doug keeps here on this web site. He is a gentleman and very willing to help out as much as possible. He is retired and only wants to fly RV's now! THere are probably others that I do not know located in Round Rock. Ted's info: USA Texas Lockhart Jones,Ted 512.398.3206 RV-6A flying.