E

Eddie

Member
Hi, I am looking for some help from the clever guys please.
I have a RV6, and have flown many hours since I bought her, but from the beginning I had a heavy right wing. I have went through the normal heavy wing procedure of squeezing the trailing edge, but I'm not happy yet.
I believe that the aileron rigging is not perfect. On the ground, when I push the stick left and let go it will go back towards the middle and stop just right of centre, when I push the stick right and let go it stays there.
I have also measured the following angles with my iphone on the top surfaces of the ailerons and wings. Measured in degrees from level as it stood in the hanger.
Wings- 13 degrees from level and ailerons 15 degrees from level in neutral position.
RH aileron- 21 degrees up from neutral and 13 down, 34 total.
LH aileron- 25 degrees up from neutral and 13 down, 38 total.
In level flight she wants to pull right and RH aileron will be up by very little and LH aileron down by little bit.

Any ideas?
 
Thanks Ralph, I have done that, but I have to create quite a big difference between the aileron and flap trailing edges before it helps. It bothers me everytime I see it.
 
rv7charlie said:
Maladjusted spring trim buried in there somewhere?
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking. Can't imagine another way that the stick would come back on it's own on the ground. Maybe the P/O set up the springs without the adjuster as his way of dealing with the heavy wing and did it wrong.

Once removed, you may have a whole bunch of different rigging issues, but at least they will respond properly to your adjustments.

Larry
 
Eddie said:
Hi, I am looking for some help from the clever guys please.
I have a RV6, and have flown many hours since I bought her, but from the beginning I had a heavy right wing.

...

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Have you done everything recommended by Van in the "[URL="http://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/Wing_Heavy.pdf]Wing Heavy Analysis[/URL]" published on the Vans site?
 
Aileron design travel per the manual is 30 up, 17 down, with minimum acceptable 25 up & 15 down. Yours are less than the minimums, & each side not the same, interesting. 2 things I can think of might cause this- the aileron control stop blocks drilled onto the inboard aileron bracket at different positions & set too shallow, or the bellcrank(s) installed backwards. Reference pg 15-2 of the manual, drawings 16, 19a

As for the heavy wing in flight, did you check the incidence of both wings, both at the root & wingtip. There might be a wing warp or mis-alignment.
How's the rudder trim? Yaw can pull a wing down too.

You have some detective work ahead
 
I also believed it was the spring in there somewhere. We recently refurbished the plane which included removing the wings, flaps and ailerons. Everything was inspected (but not measured) and found nothing weird inside. We did nothing hoping that something would have changed through the whole process.
I have not measured wing incidence yet and it does look like I have a 1-2 degree twist in the RH flap and have a rudder trim tab to cancel right rudder, which can all lead to a heavy wing, but this should be solvable with the normal aileron squeesing tecnique. My main concern is the fact that the stick forces are different. Standing outside and pushing the ailerons up and down with my hand, I can clearly feel the difference in the amount of pressure required and see the difference in tavel with the naked eye.
How do I go about measuring the bellcrank angles, positions and pushrod lengths?
Im not the builder, so I will have to get hold of the plans somewhere.

Thanks for the feedback so far.
 
I had the same problem. Here is how we easily fixed it. First make sure that you have weights equal in both fuel tanks and in both seats. If it still has a heavy wing, you can GENTLY massage the trailing edge of the opposite aileron so that it slightly curves downward. I can't stress enough that a small amount goes a long way, so go slowly, test fly, and adjust as necessary.
On the ground the stick should be in the middle and the spring resistance equal in both directions.
 
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