ORIGINAL: Spoiler
ORIGINAL: jfitter
Here's why we try all the other solutions first.
You can't put mass balances inside a model wing - the control surface deflections are too great to keep the balance weights completely within the wing.
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Disadvantages;
1. Increases live weight and moment of inertia of control system.
(Snip)
Actually, the first time I saw anything about Mass Balance was Ch10 Fig 1 in Lennon's book. He had an aileron with a sort of triangular LE where the hinge was aft of the LE, flush with the top of the wing. The LE was even with the bottom of the wing and swung up into a notch in the wing. He had a length of lead wire running the length of the LE inside the wing. Ah, heck, here's a picture. Fig A at the top.
http://terrencefoley.com/images/Mass%20Balance.jpg
I was amazed that 1, there was room within the joint for that much weight and 2, that anyone would have a reason for loading that much weight into a wing.
I'm afraid I'm not with you on this one. Have a look at my Funtana pictured below. The ailerons on this beast are extremely large stiff cross-braced structures and have had no problems handling the 50g plus weight fitted in the balancers. Done right they dont look bad either and I have no problems with my wing bags either [8D]
Spoiler, you've got to show both the dark close up shop pix and the well lit pix on the plane. I couldn't figure out what the heck that was when you first posted the dark, tip shot taken in the workshop by itself. Only because so much of communication and understanding is already knowing what you're looking at before you even see it. Not because it was a bad picture. Just not enough info at first.
Those balancers really LOOK neat cause of the sort of reverse scoop style. Anyone have any idea if that really works or if its just a large added drag. Also, is a mass balance just the kind with added weight? Are the rudder balancers that consist of just the airfoil that wraps around over the top of the tail considered mass balancers or just aerodynamic balance?