John,

Acutally I had to balance ruddervators on a V-tail for my Airframe practical half of my A&P. I've also done them for a Decathlon and Pitts S2A after recovering the control surfaces. The Decathlon was the ailerons, the Pitts was all 4 ailerons, both elevators and the rudder. Talk about a nightmare!

What plane is that in the pic? The fuselage and wing have Bridi Super Kaos written all over it, but the tail is a bit different.

opjose,

If you head to an IMAC contest, you see on the larger planes the controls droop when the radio is turned off. Just the weight of the surfaces driving the servo's, and the servo's not having any juice to fight back. Just par for the course.

Counter balancing the way John did should stop the drooping issue on the ground, but you'll still need a whole bunch of the high buck servo's on the large craft to overcome the aerodynamic forces for the fast and accurate surface movements required in flight. Aerodynamic balance, on the other hand is an entirely different can of worms.

Hogflyer