The good news is......

[RV9798]

Today I flew off the 25hrs required here in Canada. I ran to the Transport Canada office ( Next door of the Victoria Fying Club) and got issued my "Special Airworthiness Certificate". so I can go places now....BUT....I still got to have a solution to my heavy left wing problem.

The heavy left wing was temporarily fixed with lowering the left flap 1" and raising the right aileron 1/2 ". I checked all angle incidents of the wings ect. alignments ect. and did not come with anything significant. The only conclusion is that the wing tips might be warped.

I am thinking about aligning all the control surfaces again and put a wedge under the right aileron to aerodynamically balance the force. Your input please.

Pete

 

[akarmy]

The heavy left wing was temporarily fixed with lowering the left flap 1" and raising the right aileron 1/2 ". ...snip... The only conclusion is that the wing tips might be warped.

I am thinking about aligning all the control surfaces again and put a wedge under the right aileron to aerodynamically balance the force. Your input please.

Well, I had a heavy wing initially also. On the 9 of course you can't squeze the TE like the rest of the fleet... So we have to solve it by adjusting the ailerons, flaps, wing incidence, and lastly tip mounting.

I would get out your aileron bellcrank alingment template and verify that both sides are setup properly. It's best to make another matching template so you can put one on each side and clamp them in place. That will show you the proper location of the aileron neutral point. Then you can verify the relative flap and wing tip positions compared to the ailerons.

You should be able to figure out what's going on with that. It seems from your description that you are having to make quite drastic changes. I moved my flaps less than 1/4" and made a big difference...

Good luck.

 

[RV9798]

I would get out your aileron bellcrank alingment template and verify that both sides are setup properly. It's best to make another matching template so you can put one on each side and clamp them in place. That will show you the proper location of the aileron neutral point. Then you can verify the relative flap and wing tip positions compared to the ailerons.

You should be able to figure out what's going on with that. It seems from your description that you are having to make quite drastic changes. I moved my flaps less than 1/4" and made a big difference...

Good luck.

Hi Andy,

Your Apollo SL50 is doing good in my RV. Thanks for that. It powers the TruTrak A/P.

How does the belcrank alignment template look like. I just bolted the whole thing together without a template. The only alignment I did was to see how many degrees it goes up and the same for the down and match both sides.

Yeah you get a sore arm without the adjustment.

Pete

 

[Robert M]

Hi Pete.

I am about to start on my wings. Looking at the pre-view plans I see that there is an aileron alignment jig that the builder is supposed to make that has a slot in it. I don't know if this is the same thing that Andy is refering to. It uses the tooling holes in the most outboard rib to line up the slot you make in the tool with the tip of the aileron. If the tool was built correctly, the aileron should be set correctly if the tip of the trailin edge is in the center of the slot. A drawing of the tool is in the upper right corner of DWG 15.

 

[rlo1]

The alignment template comes with the wing kit on the 7, it may be in your 9 kit. No need to make one.

-Ron

 

[rvbuilder2002]

Not the same template

The alignment template comes with the wing kit on the 7, it may be in your 9 kit. No need to make one.

-Ron

You guys are not talking about the same template.
The one suppied in the kit is for positioning the aileron belcrank in its neutral position. The other one is for positioning the aileron in its neutral position.
If I remember correctly ... the reason for this is that you cant use the relationship of the tooling holes in the aileron rib and outboard wing main rib to set the ailerons at the neutral position.

 

[vlittle]

Pete: After checking the rigging using the Van's supplied bellcrank jig and the shop-made wingtip jig (see plans and instructions), you will always end up with a heavy left wing.

The solution to this is to carry a passenger or to run the fuel level down in the left wing to compensate for your solo weight.

I have the aileron trim option which I use to compensate for wing heaviness.

If you still have a heavy left wing with a balanced load, then your flap tweaks may help. Tweaking the aileron position won't have any effect other than adding drag, because the ailerons will always be in trail when you release the stick.

I don't think the wing tips will have too much effect, unless they are quite twisted... the air moves transversally over the tips. Apparently, some folks have experimented with roll trim tabs in the wing tips and they have very little effect.

Congrats on getting your paperwork! Now you can fly anywhere you want rather than to Duncan and back.

Vern Little

 

[R.P.Ping]

STOP!!

Pete, before you do anything else, now that you are "free", top off with fuel and put a 170 pounder in the right seat and go fly. If you still have a heavy left wing I'll be surprised. I also thought I had a heavy left wing. It took a long cross country trip with my wife and baggage on board to figure it out that the RV is very susceptible to the loading in the cockpit. With full fuel and loaded close to gross weight I am wings level with no trim and even fuel burn has very little effect.

Load it up and go fly.

 

[RV9798]

Pete, before you do anything else, now that you are "free", top off with fuel and put a 170 pounder in the right seat and go fly. If you still have a heavy left wing I'll be surprised. I also thought I had a heavy left wing. It took a long cross country trip with my wife and baggage on board to figure it out that the RV is very susceptible to the loading in the cockpit. With full fuel and loaded close to gross weight I am wings level with no trim and even fuel burn has very little effect.

Load it up and go fly.

Left wing still heavy with passenger, though a lot less. I will try to go to the factory and have them look at it.

My RV is a QB, that's why I did not make (missed it) the jig. I just use a protractor to get the same aileron position. I will make the Jig and Get a neutral setting.


Pete

 

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

the reason for this is that you cant use the relationship of the tooling holes in the aileron rib and outboard wing main rib to set the ailerons at the neutral position.

You can't? The instructions when building the wing are a two-step process: 1) Use the bellcrank jig to set the bellcrank at neutral and (2) Use the tooling holes to allign the trailing edge of the aileron in the neutral position.

The instructions for making that flap rod hole also remind you to set the aileron to the neutral position by (1) Using the bellcrank jig and (2) Using the tooling holes.

The reason for all of this is that the aileron neutral position is established in RELATION to the control rods. Heck, you can set the aileron in the neutraol position and have the yoke hard over. Similarly, you can set the rods to the neutral position and not have the aileron in the neutral position.

It's not either-or.

 

[Bryan Wood]

heavy left wing

Pete,

The heavy wing on a 9/9A is fixed by first aligning the ailerons with the jig as others have stated. Then clamp the ailerons into a neutral position and check for high or low spots. In other words one or more of the aileron brackets is not true with the others (on the rear spar) and the problem is corrected by slotting the holes in the aileron brackets (on the ailerons) and adjusting the ailerons to be the same. When looking for an offset aileron use a long straight edge or whatever to see if the outboard and inboard areas of the ailerons are true and even. For what it is worth it took 10-11 full turns on the flap rod end bearing before the flap would make a difference on mine. Leave the flap up and slot the brackets. You'll like it.

Best,

 

[kentb]

Sloting the bracks may be needed, but....

First make sure that the rigging is correct.

I had a heavy right wing (now that is different).

What I did (after much advise):

I build two wing tip alignment tools. Remove both wing tip and attached the alignment tool to the tooling holes. I put the bellcrank alignemnt tool on one side and aligned that sides aileron by adjusting both the control tube and the aileron control rode. I than clamp the aileron to the alignment tools and adjusted the linkage on the other wing to get that aileron to align with the other alignment tool.

After this I check the flap trailing edge position against the ailerons. The left side match up fine, but the right side was about 1/4 inch above the aileron.
It took about two full turns of the flap control rod to align the right flap and now the plane flys very even.

I couple of points to consider.

If you position the ailerons evenly and lay a yard stick along the top of the wing, the yard stick should contact the trailing edge of the aileron. Move the yard stick inboard to outboard and the contact should remain uniform. If it doesn't you may need to do the slotted bracket trick to get it straight. Of coarse check both sides. They should match closely side to side as well as along their length.

Moving one aileron will change the position of the stick while flying, as both will seak an even nutrual position. You can move both ailerons up or down by adjusting their linkage.

Before correcting the heavy right wing as mention above I had place a small (about 3 inch long) styrofoam wedge under the right wing tip and it correct the heavy wing problem.

Hope this helps.

Kent

 

[n2prise]

Never a heavy wing on either side.

I hear each of you with some of the truth here, but the slots? No way!

Van's tells the story of how it is done with their aileron jig to get all the linkage set up correctly to keep the control sticks vertical in the cabin. The wing tip jig confirms the aileron pushrod linkage has centered the aileron to the wing chord line (tooling holes in the end rib). I built my wing tip jig from a piece of aluminum angle.

http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a013.htm

It is important to get the wing tips attached to align with the ailerons while the factory built aileron belcrank jig is attached.

http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a108.htm

http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a111.htm

http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a125.htm

When the final flap alignment is done before flight, it all comes together for a smooth flying airplane. For my airplane, the flaps are tight against the bottom of the fuselage when the alignment with the ailerons is achieved. As for noticing a change in airplane roll trim with or without a passenger, I never have.

When I flew to Oshkosh this year, the airplane was loaded to max gross weight for the first time. Pitch trim changes were noticed as we moved around during the cruise portion of the flights to and from OSH.

Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN
RV-9A N2PZ 207.3 Hobb's Hours
www.n2prise.org

 

[RV9798]

Good Grief

Jerry,

it looks like my wing tips needs to be realigned. I will take the wingtips off and fly it (without the tips) and see how it flies. Your way of aligning the wing tips are great and I probably need to re align it.. But... I will postpone it untill the winter...now I fly first. It is too much fun

Pete

 

[aadamson]

Don't think I'd do that.

Jerry,

it looks like my wing tips needs to be realigned. I will take the wingtips off and fly it (without the tips) and see how it flies. Your way of aligning the wing tips are great and I probably need to re align it.. But... I will postpone it untill the winter...now I fly first. It is too much fun

Pete

Playing mother... BUT... Fly your airplane without it's wingtips.... I don't think thats a very wise decision...