N484M

burgundyja · #1 10-07-2009, 06:39 PM

my rv-8a was born today at about 11:00 am. the flight was 30 mins long. the engine ran very cool. i did have a heavy wing and am wondering how bad before i shoud make changes to fix it. with even fuel at 140kts it is very noticable. but with 6 to 8 gals between the tanks and 80 to 90kts it is gone.
should i do some more flights or try to fix it now?

AlexPeterson · #2 10-07-2009, 07:37 PM

Mike, congratulations! Quite the peppy little planes, aren't they?

I'd look to fix every single squawk as they occur, so the heavy wing would qualify. First, all the rigging should be checked - flaps, ailerons. If you have the wheel and gear fairings on, they should be removed to verify it isn't them causing the roll. Lots of experience in heavy wings - look in these archives.

D-Dubya · #3 10-07-2009, 10:31 PM

Van's has a pretty good write-up on their web site about how to correct for a heavy wing. It's a pretty common condition. But before you go tweaking on anything, is the plane finished? Fairings, wheel pants, and anything else hanging out in the airstream can and will affect how the plane flies.

As stated in the first reply, check the rigging and all that first. If the plane doesn't have any controllability issues, you might want to wait for all the fairings to be installed before you start chasing a heavy wing. If you have your pants and fairings on and have determined that they're not the problem, then you can move on to Van's method of squeezing the trailing edge of the light wing. The aileron squeezing trick does work. I don't fully understand why, but it does.

But once you start squeezing, it's tough to unsqueeze it, so be gentle.

frazitl · #4 10-08-2009, 09:08 AM

on my 7A with a right slightly heavy wing. Fix was to make sure that the ailerons were at EXACTLY the same height relative to the wing. Change of only .020" made a noticeable difference (lowered the HEAVY wing). I believe Van's recommends looking at this before squeezing the trailing edge of the light wing...

Make sure your gear fairings and wheel pants aren't causing it first.

Good Luck!

frankh · #5 10-08-2009, 09:42 AM

From your namesake

N484H

Cheers

Frank

Guy Prevost · #6 10-08-2009, 11:48 PM

Congratulations! Always good to see another 8A. I believe they are the most unusual, except for maybe the -3.

Read the writeup on Van's site. I believe the recommend flying for several hours prior to fixing a heavy wing.

Guy