So after more than a year, I'm pulling my SE5a out of mothballs hoping to get it into the air when the weather calms down. It's only flown a single handful of times and each time it was a handful. The first flight was a wild ride for balance reasons. On the remaining flights I had to do everything I could just to make it fly straight. I would't turn right. Even with full right aileron trim, I couldn't get it to turn right.

And that's where I left it...intending to check it for alignment issues. But then I got involved in other things, our club lost its field, and I returned to building my Albatros CI.

Anyway, I decided to start with a little photo analysis. As you can see in the photo below, there are some major alignment issues. It's hard to believe I didn't see this before. Obviously the right and left wing panels have different degrees of dihedral (I've leveled the model and straightened the photo do have the center section level) and one side of the elevator is not square.

Would this deplorable state of affairs have resulted in model's desire to pull left? Obviously, I'll have to re-rig it.