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Old 11-01-2009 | 12:29 AM
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BMatthews
 
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From: Chilliwack, BC, CANADA
Default RE: Stab twist: one side. Effect?

Summerwind, you may want to calm yourself down and adhere to polite RCU discussion rules or earn a time out. It's fine to disagree and discuss but do not belittle as you're doing.

I stand by all I typed. And frankly I don't see what you found so wrong in it.

Yes, the twist will have the effect of increasing the negative incidence in the stabilizer so it'll try to climb and considerable down trim will be needed to counter this. Looking at the first picture shows this clearly.

No the twist will not induce a significant amount of rolling action. First off the twist in the stabilizer is working over a very short moment arm compared to the span of the wing. Second the wing tends to damp out rolling inputs from sources that are not wing related. A fellow posted on another board about a short span biplane with a very long span stabilizer. Since the stabilizer was so big he thought he would be able to go with elevons and avoid the need for aileron servos. Even with a stab that was well over 1/2 the span of the wing the roll inputs did very little and the model was almost unflyable. It certainly wasn't in any way capable of the 3D style maneuvers that were intended. The wing acted to damp out the rolling inputs from the elevons with great gusto. The designer/builder said it was just barely able to turn at all even with large amounts of throw in the elevons on his Pitts'ish like design. So the P-51 with a stabilizer span that is far less than the wing span will produce an almost insignificant rolling moment from the amount of twist shown.

Yes I'm a big fan of using heat to correct a lot of misalignment woes. But in this case we've got a stabilizer that is built up with full sheeting over ribs and then has been prep'ed with glass cloth and finishing resin before being painted. As you know this produces a rather stiff structure. To soften the resin and lignum in the wood to allow the surface to be twisted back into correct alignment will require a lot of high temperature being applied from a heat gun or other source. And under that sort of temperature paints have been known to blister and peel. So I added a warning to heat the surface with care with an eye to closely monitoring the paint for signs of lifting. Nothing more and nothing less. I certainly did not suggest that heating the surface would be ineffectual or not to try it.