ORIGINAL: foosball_movie
Hi. I'm building a P39 Airacobra kit. The directions call for the aileron servo to be centered in the wing. In order to do this, I will need to cut a square in the center rib deep enough to accommodate the servo. I'd prefer to keep the rib intact, because that seems to be a lot of rib to remove at such a critical location.
The ailerons move with torque rods. Does the servo have to be perfectly centered in order for the ailerons to move correctly (ie equal throws)? If I install the servo just to the left or right of the center rib, can I still get it to work correctly?
Foosball, lots of good info up there above, however as an RCer for 37 years, after many CL/FF competition years, I say it doesn't make a small rodent's posterior if you place the servo off center, lay it down, angle it or whatever.
From your post you are doing a relatively small model, with ONE aileron servo. Back in the days when 1/4 midget Pylon was a popular racing event, limited to .15 engines, and there WERE NO SMALL SERVOS THAT WOULD DO THE JOB, No small receivers, etc, we found all manner of ways to snug in the radio. Back in the '70s almost any servo -- and they were almost all alike -- cost
40 Yankee Dolla', (at least $100 of today's money) so unlike today we didn't have 'umpteen servos laying around on the work bench. I flew Q-500 a number of years with one wing servo, laying on its side, at about 20* angle from wing centerline, and hooked to torque rods via pushrods each with one or more line-up bends in them.
You're obviously not flying a 3D gas burner, or a 70" plus Pattern machine. Your airplane will fly and fly well. Many pylon fliers, especially in FAI and the old Formula One (near 200 mph), used only ONE aileron. So what if there is a tad of differential between the two ailerons? Makes no never-mind and I'm betting you will never know the difference. BTDT many times.
BTW, in flight all weight is resting on the wing center area. I like my ribs & center sections to be strong.
