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Light aileron, how to fix?

N

N787R

Active Member
I flew my RV7A couple times. Everything is fine. No wing heavy.
Except the ailerons are extremely light.
Much lighter than anything else I flew during transition flight.
I feel no pressure on them at all at any airspeed. It feels as if I am sitting on the ground and move the ailerons.
Looking for suggestions in fixing it. I heard that squeezing the trailing edge will work. Is that the right way?

Thanks

Ben
 
N787R said:
Except the ailerons are extremely light.
Much lighter than anything else I flew during transition flight.
I feel no pressure on them at all at any airspeed. It feels as if I am sitting on the ground and move the ailerons.
Click to expand...

That's a good thing. :)
 
Some of the RV's can be extra light and too sensitive, making some pilots uncomfortable. Squeezing both ailerons an equal amount will help decrease the sensitivity.

Vic
 
Ben,

Did you shorten your stick or is it the stock length?

Some people have shortened them a good bit and found the airplane a bit touch to fly.
 
How many hours in RVs? Since you mentioned transition training only I am (possibly in error) assuming you don't have too many hours in RVs...

I'm only suggesting holding off with anything as "radical" as this until you're absolutely sure the problem actually exists.. Comparing to Cessna, Cirrus etc doesn't mean there is a problem :)
 
how much time in RV?

I got the same report from my test pilot who is an ATP with over 250 hours in RVs. and about 27,000 hours total.

The stick is shortened but not as much as it could be. I will be cutting more. Meanwhile I am it as low as I can reach.

I would have to look at the trailing edge of some of other RVs in local airport to see how mine compares to theirs.
 
N787R said:
...The stick is shortened but not as much as it could be. I will be cutting more. Meanwhile I am it as low as I can reach...
Click to expand...
It sounds like the stick is already too short. My experience has been that the shorter the stick, the harder it is to control the airplane. This tendency is exacerbated even more if the low grip position causes any interference between arm and leg.

Although a shorter stick does cause stick forces to be higher (normally not a good thing) I would think it unwise to shorten the stick to get higher forces.
 
n5lp said:
N787R said:
I...The stick is shortened but not as much as it could be. I will be cutting more. Meanwhile I am it as low as I can reach....
Click to expand...

It sounds like the stick is already too short. My experience has been that the shorter the stick, the harder it is to control the airplane. This tendency is exacerbated even more if the low grip position causes any interference between arm and leg.

Although a shorter stick does cause stick forces to be higher (normally not a good thing) I would think it unwise to shorten the stick to get higher forces.
Click to expand...
Van had a great article in one of the RVators about stick length.

By holding it at the top of the stick, it requires you to move the stick a greater distance to displace the control surfaces.

With a short stick, you don't have to move it very far to displace the control surfaces, leading to over controlling the airplane.

If you look at some of the high performance acro birds, they have really long sticks. That is to give the pilots better control over their planes.

Shortening the stick even more will make things worse not better.

As Radomir hinted at, get some time in another RV and see how yours comparis before making any adjustments.

PS. Even my long wing RV-9 is considered very light on the ailerons by pilots new to RV's, so your plane may be "normal"
 
With over 3000hrs of RV time I have had the chance to fly many different RV's. The control force varies quite a bit from one to the other. Like someone mentioned above, the trailing edge radius determines how light the control surface feels, smaller radius = firmer feel, larger radius = lighter feel. Relatively small differences can make a very definate change in control feel. Squeezing both ailerons equally will make them feel stiffer. This is a somewhat touchy thing to accomplish because ensuring that both sides are squeezed equally is difficult. Give it a try with a moderate squeeze, most likely you will have to go back to the light side and squeeze some more since your first attempt will probably result in a slight imbalance. By the way, the RV7 and 9 rudders feel a lot stiffer than those in the 8's, 6's and 4's not only because they are bigger but primarily due to their sharp trailing edge.

Martin Sutter
building and flying RV's since 1988
 
Hi Ben, only saw this now so maybe you have fixed it by now. LIGHT Ailerons are most definitely coming from your trailing edges having a bigger radius.

I have had the same. The AC was so sensitive that I was almost too scared to fly it. So I just pinched both Aileron trialing edges very-very slightly and only about one third of each one. The AC was totally different with a very nice feeling of "loading" the Ailerons in the roll.

Another guess is that you have a QB. I am saying this because most QB's that I have seen have this where with the normal kits, the builders seem to bent the radius quite sharp and therefore do not know about this.
 
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