RCU Forums - View Single Post - Up elevator makes my plane snap to the right
Old 03-18-2014 | 03:19 PM
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dbacque
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25 - 30 degrees of elevator is lots of elevator on a pattern plane! If absolutely required for snap/spin maneuvers, you might think about dual rates for just those times when you need it.

But if the plane is always snapping to the right, that indicates some form of imbalance. For some reason, the right wing is always stalling first. Two things come to mind that can cause that. Lateral balance and wing twist.

In my experience, the usual culprit is wing twist. Have you checked the plane with an incidence meter? Block the plane up so that the wing center is at zero degrees. Check both wing roots, are they at the same angle? They should be! Then check both wing tips. Are they also both at zero? They better be! Any twist in the wing will be compensated for with aileron trim. Now you have two wing tips with different cambers that are flying at different angle of attacks and will stall at different speed/AOA. That is the recipe for a consistent tip stall, one wing tip always stalls before the rest of the wing.

The other possibility is lateral balance, usually not a player. Trim out for big, long straight and level passes. Then roll inverted and make a long pass with no aileron input. Does the plane roll? If it rolls right, the left wing is heavy. Add a chip of lead to the right wing and repeat. When you've got it balanced to trim out in roll both upright and inverted, the lateral balance is right. Even if this isn't the cause of your problem, you need to do it for your maneuvers to be true so do it anyway.

What is the wing construction? If it's balsa and shrink covering, you can adjust the wing twist with a heat gun. Twist the wing the opposite direction and reshrink the skin top and bottom. Retest with the meter. Get both wing tips to the same incidence. This has tamed many tip stallers in my past.

Dave