Bad Sheila

Bad Sheila

Active Member
Everyone talks about 'squeezing' an aileron but do not say how you do it?
Do you use your fingers? Do you use 2 pieces of flat wood and use vise grips set to a fixed pressure? Do you do 1" at a time, 3" or 6"?

How do you turn your leg fairing to raise a 'heavy' wing? Will the drag penalty be worth it?

Questions, Questions, Questions? :D
 
The way I squeezed the aileron is to use two paint sticks in a set of seamer vicegrips (the ones with the large flat plates in the jaws) Take it easy, it doesn't take much,, do a little then fly. Also fly with the aircraft properly weighted, expect left wing heavy with only the pilot in there.
 
Van says LAST!

There are 20 things to rig before that. Everything from ailerons being mis-rigged to pants being off. Remember you can't un-squeeze it...
 
Errrr maybe.

You can kinda, sorta unsqueeze them Bob. You place a 2 X 4 or similar, vertically against the trailing edge and hit it with a hammer...carefully.

Best,
 
Be very cautious as it take very little force and undoing it will be harder.

For a nice can clean squeeze, take two long angle aluminum on either side of the trailing edge with a bunch of C-clamp evenly spaced. This gives you a good control to squeeze little at the time. As others mentioned do a little and fly, repeat till desired evenness has achived.
 
The paint sticks and seaming pliers is about the best method.
Again, be careful. A little goes a long way. If you can see that you've done anything, you may have done too much.

Just do a little and go fly. It's much easier to do multiple times than to "undo".
 
squeezing

I recently did it (after exhausting other methods) and everyone is right, a little at a time. Do about 6-8" at a time. I squeezed a three foot section first and it drastically gave me a heavy wing in the opposite direction which I could not bring out even with a very large wedge. I reversed it by the 2x4 / hammer method and now its just right. Like everyone said, BE VERY CAREFUL, go slow!!

Jim
RV-6
 
Just remember, if you are a side by side, solo, with a balanced fuel load, you will have a heavy left wing. Balance your fuel load between the tanks, place an equal wieght passenger or ballast in the seat next to you, and then see.
 
Just so I understand

I bought my 6 used, and with equal fuel, I have the right wing dropping on me with a passenger of equal weight. With a passenger, I have to turn my aileron trim to the left. So for now assuming everything else is lined up, this is indicating a right heavy wing, correct?

If I do this, I would squeeze the opposite aileron on the left side?
 
Right....

The way I remember it is...squeezing makes the aileron "fly-up". This in turn makes that wing "fly-down". So you want to squeeze the aileron on the "lighter" wing.
 
OK, but I have a slightly different problem. On the ground both Ailerons look exactly level on the ground. I have checked the bellcrank holes and they both line up with a small drill bit passed through. There does not seem to be any slack in the system from the stick to Aileron or Aileron to Aileron, by two people hold each one and trying to move for any slack ?

But in the air with ''hands off'' the left Aileron TRAILS down about 3/8ths at the trailing edge and the Right seems to be up slightly less ?? But in fact the aircraft rolls to the LEFT which seems odd. The ball is in the middle and I have the usual rudder tab to give a slight rudder right.

Any thoughts on what to look for or check ?

Thanks
 
Incidence?

Welcome to VAF, John.

If you'll find an inclinometer, or a plain old level, with the airplane sitting on a level floor, check the incidence of both wings. Check them near the wing root by shimming one end of the level until the bubble is centered, then check the opposite wing at the same place to see whether one side has slightly more incidence than the other. If that's the case, you'll just have to live with it, rather than re-drilling the rear spar attach points, which can complicate matters because of edge distance requirements.

Believe me, you're not the only one with this condition and they fly just fine in spite of it:)

Best,
 
un-squeezing

set your air flush rivet gun to the lowest possible pressure at which it will still reliabably operate (you can hold it against your hand and it won't hurt). Attach a few layers of duct tap over the face of the flush head. start at the outboard end of the aileron, hold the face against the trailing edge and perpendicular with one hand and while holding the trigger down, slide smoothly and evenly across the trailing edge. Fly, repeat, fly as required.
 
You might be able to fine-tune the plane if you've squeezed too much on an aileron, by reflexing the flap upwards a little on the now too-light wing side.

I was able to get satisfactory hands-off / feet-off wings level and ball in the center on my RV-6 by raising the right flap a little bit. It was a little bit left-wing heavy even with two 200 pounders on board. It now flies even and level with just me aboard, and also when I had the plane loaded to the hilt with way much more camping gear than I ever needed on the Oshkosh trip. Haven't yet tried it with another passenger in the right seat yet, but I'll bet it'll fly fine with 2-up now.

Now I need to figure out how to get rid of a huge tendency for the plane to want to suddenly sidestep/bolt to the left immediately after the mains break ground on takeoff unless I quickly put in a bunch of right rudder at precisely the right time as the plane lifts off... I guess this high-pitched wood cruise prop just has a ton of P-factor that I'm not accustomed to. It does this much worse if I lift the tail as soon as possible, accelerate to a good flying airspeed in level attitude on the mains, and then rotate the nose up to takeoff. If I just keep the tail down with the stick neutral, and let the plane takeoff on its own as soon as the wing is ready to fly in a relaxed 3-point attitude, this phenominon is not nearly as pronounced.
 
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Neal@F14 said:
You might be able to fine-tune the plane if you've squeezed too much on an aileron, by reflexing the flap upwards a little on the now too-light wing side.

I was able to get satisfactory hands-off / feet-off wings level and ball in the center on my RV-6 by raising the right flap a little bit.
Click to expand...
How were you able to reflex the flap up more? Was that flap not already up tight against the bottom of the fuselage on the inboard side? Just trying to figure out if that's an option for me.
 
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On the RV-6, the flap only has a little bit of the lower skin to seal up against the bottom of the fuselage. It's pretty easy to bend that a little so the flap can go up a little higher. The upper flap skin is trimmed so that it has a gap between it and the side of the fuselage. I didn't think about the other RV models having different mechanisms for flap upper limit stops...
 
Van's article on heavy wings says one can always use a wedge under the aileron if the squeezing didn't work out. It didn't say which aileron. Would it go on the aileron with the heavy or light wing?
 
squeezing ailerons

Hi Bad Shiela...
I know all about crimping the ailerons trailing edge as I experienced very severe "aileron snap" before having knowledge of this.
You want to crimp the "light" wing aileron trailing edge with a pair of duckbill vice grips. Set the vice grip to barely perceptibly squeeze the trailing edge. Maintain that setting and move the duckbill vicegrip all along that edge then fly it and see. It doesn't take much to make a big difference!
It helps to put some thick tape on the duckbill vicegrip just to be easy on your paint.
Good luck!
 
redhawk said:
Hi Bad Shiela...
I know all about crimping the ailerons trailing edge as I experienced very severe "aileron snap" before having knowledge of this.
You want to crimp the "light" wing aileron trailing edge with a pair of duckbill vice grips. Set the vice grip to barely perceptibly squeeze the trailing edge. Maintain that setting and move the duckbill vicegrip all along that edge then fly it and see. It doesn't take much to make a big difference!
It helps to put some thick tape on the duckbill vicegrip just to be easy on your paint.
Good luck!
Click to expand...

Good advice. The proper unit of pressure to apply is 1/2 unit of hog's breath pressure then go test fly.
 
wrongway john said:
Van's article on heavy wings says one can always use a wedge under the aileron if the squeezing didn't work out. It didn't say which aileron. Would it go on the aileron with the heavy or light wing?
Click to expand...

To answer my own question:

I found out through a lot of searching on this site, that you place the wedge on the underside of the aileron on the lighter wing, in case others want to try this, and if you don?t want to squeeze the aileron. Not sure why Van's article didn't state this.

Anyway, my problem is solved, and it was so easy. First, I tried the aileron squeeze on the light wing which is my left. I only did about nine inches worth, as other recommended, just go slow and try not to overdue it and not do that long of a span at first. I didn?t notice any effect the first time.

The second time, I squeezed slightly more, but this time, it seemed to make my heavier wing (right wing) even heavier. With a passenger and fuel equal, I have to use all of my trim now, along with some light stick pressure that I hadn?t had to do before. Not sure what gives.

I tried to measure my ailerons thickness to see if I could quantify it a bit. I took some dial calipers and set it to .300. I gently slid it along both ailerons. With the heavy wing, the calipers would go in about 3/8th?s of an inch. On the light wing, only about an 1/8th of inch. This does seem to indicate my light wing aileron is thicker, and needs to be squeezed. After the results of the first test, not sure I wanted to try it again though.

But as I was saying, while reading through threads, I noticed another who said he used the wooden wedge, but put it on the underside of the lighter aileron. Mine already had a wooden wedge that was 4 and a half inches long that was placed on the heavy wing!? Go figure. I decided, I would take it off, but didn?t expect much. But wow, it did the trick! Finally, she flies true and straight, and ball is in center. With full fuel on both tanks, and just me, I had to use a little bit of trim on the right, which seems about right with just me in there. I?ll do a passenger with about my weight next, to see how close it is, but what a major improvement already. Why in heck that wedge was on the heavier wing, I have no idea, and don?t understand at all why it was ever placed there.

Just hope this helps others that may be experiencing similar problems.
 
My "Bad Sheila" is now a happy girl.

I squeezed the light wing aileron "just a tiny little bit" and whoa, it became the heavy wing. I then did the other wing and now it flies beautifully and seems to land easier. It worked out OK because both each aileron has an even thickness along the full length of the aileron.

I used 2 wooden popsicle sticks and a pair of vicegrips as per you guys suggestions... thanks.

I am now a happy little vegemite. LOL :D
 
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