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Heavy wing

E

Ex Bonanza Bucko

Well Known Member
I have a new S-LSA from Van's....very happy with it so far. But I have a heavy starboard wing. At high power it's worse than at low power. Hands off it will drop the right wing gently.

I assume there is an adjustment to the rigging that will fix this....always was on the tube and fabric tail draggers we restored :)

If you have input about this please give it to me. Whatever I have done will be done by an AI...son is one:)
EBB
 
There are several threads on this. VANs says to squeeze the aileron trailing edge to correct it. Some of us ELSA and EAB owners have added trim tabs.
 
the SLSA that I just did transition training in at Vans dropped the right wing quite sharply if you let the stick go. fortunately my plane did not have this issue. when I mentioned it to Gus he thought the rudder trim was the culprit.
 
Heavy Starbord wing

I talked with Gus and he said that perhaps squeezing the Port side Flaperon would help. So far it hasn't.

It occurred to me that the rudder trim might have an impact on the heavy wing but the ball is solidly in the middle and it seems that tweaking the the rudder trim would screw that up....as it would on any other airplane.

EBB
 
trim

My plane has a slightly heavy right wing which gets worse when I add full fuel or a passenger but is ok when I have a bit of luggage on pilots side I am thinking of fitting aileron trim using a light spring pulling to the right and an adjustable light bungy cord pulling to the left
 
My first 12 initially had a heavy right wing. I squeezed the t/e of the aileron to no avail, although I have seen this work quite well before on other rv's. I used a tab on the left wing for awhile until I decided to address the problem. IMO there is not a good way to initially measure the rod end bearings that the flaperons ride on. I removed the left flaperon and found that it was slightly bowed at the spar because of the bearings not being at the same height. I then turned the center bearing out until the spar was straight and the hinges were in alignment without having to flex the flaperon to install the pivot bolt. I flew the a/p and found that it was better so I did the same on the other side. It seemed slightly better. I then turned the left rod end bearings out 1 turn and never had to touch it again.
 
Dave12 said:
My first 12 initially had a heavy right wing. I squeezed the t/e of the aileron to no avail, although I have seen this work quite well before on other rv's. I used a tab on the left wing for awhile until I decided to address the problem. IMO there is not a good way to initially measure the rod end bearings that the flaperons ride on. I removed the left flaperon and found that it was slightly bowed at the spar because of the bearings not being at the same height. I then turned the center bearing out until the spar was straight and the hinges were in alignment without having to flex the flaperon to install the pivot bolt. I flew the a/p and found that it was better so I did the same on the other side. It seemed slightly better. I then turned the left rod end bearings out 1 turn and never had to touch it again.
Click to expand...

I've been giving dual in Dave's first '12 and it flys straight, so apparently his technique worked. On my '12 I followed the advice from Van's and got the rudder trim correct first (one wedge), then squeezed flaperons to get wings level. Worked fine.
 
Bruce,

I had the same problem with a very heavy left wing. After discussing the problem with Van's and input from this forum I went back and recheck and adjusted the trailing edges on both flapperons. Make sure to check the bottoms as well as the top, mine were mostly off on the bottom. After squeezing as need it made a big difference but did not entirely correct the heavy wing.

I then did what others had suggested, adjusted the rod end bearings on the flapperons. I turned the ones out on the light wing one complete turn - now flies hands off.

Bill
 
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