Ok, what next? How about we move up to the wing and get the aileron servo installed. Let me take a moment and make a couple of comments about ailerons and aileron servos. In this day and age it is just about the norm for a plane to have dual aileron servos, with one servo controlling each aileron. While this has it's advantages, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I have seen many new pilots (and I can't even count how many times I've been asked) think that they “have” to have dual aileron servos. It has only been the last 10 years or so that servos have become cheap enough to put a servo in each wing, so in past times the choice for a single aileron servo was done to save money (and weight). But some of the best flying planes out there were designed for a single aileron servo, three that come to mind right off the bat would be the Ultra Sport 60 (yes, you all know by know this is my favorite!! ), the Great Planes Ultimate 40, and the Ugly Stick. Theses planes could (and still do) fly circles around a lot of modern planes with dual servos. The point that I'm trying to make here is simply to let those new people who have doubts in their minds know that it's fine to have a single aileron servo on their trainers. And a note for the other side of the argument, yes there are a few advantages for having dual servos in a plane. Probably the biggest argument would be that since there are 2 servos they can push bigger ailerons. This really comes into play in 3-D type planes that need huge ailerons to perform like they are designed. There is no way a single servo could drive those 2 huge servos pushing that much air. The other reason I hear for having 2 servos I am a bit skeptical on. Many will tell you that having 2 servos can save your plane if a servo goes out. While this is 100% true, I don't feel that it's a good reason in this argument. In almost 10 years of flying I've never blown an aileron servo yet. If you do proper and regular maintenance on your planes you should be able to tell when a servo is starting to wear, and the servo should be replaced long before it goes bad. In fact, part of my season beginning maintenance routines are to open the servo and inspect the gear train in high stress critical servos, and while I have it open I will clean and lube the gears. If I find damaged gears I will either replace gear train (most major radio manufacturers make rebuilt kits for their servos), and if I can't replace the gears I will mark the servo for use in non-critical controls such as the throttle. So in closing, I hope that you walk away from this little discussion is that while it's great to have dual aileron servos it's not always needed. I promise I'll put away my soap box for now!!

So, let's get on with installing the aileron servo in the wing. We installed the lite ply servo mount when we built the wing. In picture #1 you can see test fitting the servo into the mount. It's been mentioned here concerning exiting the servo wire from the mount. Don't worry about, there is plenty of room on the side of the servo for the wire to exit between the servo and mount. Position the servo in the mount making sure it's sitting square in the mount and mark the screw holes as we have for the servo tray. In picture #2 using a center point locater to mark the location of your screw holes. Go ahead and drill your screw holes (picture #3) and use a screw in each hole to cut threads in the wood (picture #4). After you have threads in each hole use thin CA to harden the wood (picture #5). Place your servo back in the mount and put in the mounting screws (pictures #6 and #7), make sure you don't over tighten the screws when mounting the servos (which we covered earlier in this thread). Pictures #8 and #9 show the servo mounting into the wing.

In my next post I'll be finishing up the aileron installation by installing the control rods for the ailerons.


Pictures
1. Test fit the servo in the mount
2. Mark the location of the holes for you mounting screws
3. Drill each hole as marked
4. Use a mounting screw to create threads into the holes that you drilled
5. Use thin CA to harden the threads that were cut into the wood
6. Replace the servo into the mount
7. Install the mounting screws to secure the servo
8. Mounted aileron servo in wing
9. Mounted aileron servo in wing

Until next time

Ken