[Ivan Kristensen]

So far the building process has been going excellent until I got to the trim tabs. After much fussing getting them bent correctly today I was finally ready to begin the riveting process.

I was warned by another fellow RV-10 builder to be on the lookout for twisting of the trim tabs and sure enough after finshing the bottom row of rivets and the control horns both of of my tabs have a slight twist.

My question to all you forum readers is, how much of a twist is acceptable? Is any amount of twist acceptable?

I estimate that mine are twisted about an 1/8" over the full lenght of the tab. The problem is that the right one is twisted up and the left one the twist is down.

Any help and advise you have would be appreciated

Thanks,

Ivan Kristensen

 

[yakdriver]

Ivan, The question is "what is acceptable to you". If you can live with a little twist in the trim tabs can you then live with say the stab just a little off and then maybe the wing incidence just a touch off? The fast airplanes are all perfectly straight and trim out without much in the way of trim tabs. I spent hours making sure everything was straight on my 7 and was rewarded with an airplane that flys hands off with no trim tabs. Don

 

[Mel]

Only people who will notice are those working on their trim tabs.

Like Yakdriver says, it depends on what acceptable to you. You won't notice a difference in flight characteristics. And others won't notice unless you point it out to them.