Could Elevator misalignment cause heavy wing?

[SHORTRV7]

I am working through a right heavy wing senerio from Vans and while looking at everything pointed out I noticed that my left elevator was .5 degrees down. Not much to worry about, but would one elevator being down that amount cause a roll tendency to the aircraft? I have a centered ball, incidence of the wings are right on with maybe .1 degree negitive twist at the far outboard part of the right wing. Before I start the squeezing of the alerons I thought I would run the elevators misalignment by some of you.

Don short

 

[bird]

Just my opinion

And I am not an guru, engineer or rocketship builder. However I have built and flown hundreds of r/cs and a few full scale aircraft for the last 30yrs. My opinion is that .5 degree would make very little difference in roll. At real high cruise speeds you might see something from that. It could be contributing to the problem but not much. I would read up on here about squeezing the aileron trailing edge. But do this very slowly and cautiously. Search these forums and study real well. I would fly quite a bit before I did this to verify. Hope this gives you a place to start with a heavy wing.

bird

 

[SHORTRV7]

The right roll becomes more prevelant as the speeds increases. Most noticable when I decend at 200 plus. I do want to proceed with the aleron squeezing but the left elevator is down a little and would like to know if it would help some to get them balanced out.

 

[RV7Guy]

Save the time

Save the time and squeeze the aileron. I had a heavy left wing. I checked everything including flap alignment, wing incidence, stab incidence, aileron exactness and gear fairings. Still there.

I called Joe Blank and he said, "yep, heavy wing. Squeeze the aileron."

I took my hand seamer and made a thin foam liner for the jaws. I squeezed the aileron and got some moderate improvement. There was absolutely no noticeable movement of the skin when it was squeezed.

Squeezed again, a little more aggressively this time. Again, no visible change in the skin. Took off and the plane was dead nuts on. I figured I wasted almost 6 hours checking other stuff.

Not sure what it does, but it works. Do it and move on to enjoying the plane!!!

 

[Mel]

I am working through a right heavy wing senerio from Vans and while looking at everything pointed out I noticed that my left elevator was .5 degrees down. Not much to worry about, but would one elevator being down that amount cause a roll tendency to the aircraft? I have a centered ball, incidence of the wings are right on with maybe .1 degree negitive twist at the far outboard part of the right wing. Before I start the squeezing of the alerons I thought I would run the elevators misalignment by some of you.

Elevator misalignment can cause a rolling moment, but I wouldn't count on it with that little. After flying my -6 for about 17 years, I noticed that my elevators were misaligned slightly. I went to a lot of trouble to correct them thinking that I might have to squeeze an aileron. Didn't happen!

 

[SHORTRV7]

Exactly the resposes I wanted to hear!! Although do you all think that squeezeing the alerons can be done by protecting the squeeze with the foam or tape on a painted surface with a tool? I have read where one can squeeze with fingers??? At any rate I will try to squeeze the light wing by hand a little at a time. Sure sounds like that is what will work.......Thanks guys for the responses.

 

[Mel]

I use seaming pliers covered with duct tape. Fingers will cause wavy dents.
Remember you will need VERY little squeezing. If you can visibly see the results, you've probably done too much.
Do a little and go fly, do a little and go fly, etc.

 

[taflores]

Heavy wing too

I have the same issue, a heavy left wing, so I need to squeeze the aileron on the right wing correct, also do you squeeze the whole length of the aileron?

 

[Andy Hill]

I use seaming pliers covered with duct tape. Fingers will cause wavy dents.
Remember you will need VERY little squeezing. If you can visibly see the results, you've probably done too much.

As Mel says... Draw a line on the Seamers to align with the TE. Squeeze one panel (say outboard), and then look along TE with light reflecting off the panel such that you can only just see when the pliers have some effect (i.e. adjust pliers until you only just see effect). Go fly, if still heavy, do a second panel etc. I would suggest "take out" maybe 75% of the heavy wing, then leave it for an hour or 2 and see if the remaining "heavy" wing is really there...

I would adjust the elevators first... Grind some washers to a slight wedge shape so the elevator bolt is slightly misaligned to correct the error, when it's all OK bond them to the elevator horns.

 

[Janekom]

I can also talk out of experience.
Squeeze the TE only one panel at a time.
REMEMBER - for your heavy RIGHT HAND wing yu squeeze the LEFT HAND aileron. Just in case you did not know. I did not pick it up in the previous postings.