chadxp1

My Feedback: (2)

I did a repair to an airplane that was given to me. The rear horizontal stabilizer is not horizontal or square to the airframe. What can I expect when flying the airplane? Its off a few degrees or more. Its noticeable but not real bad. Will the plane want to roll? Its a smaller airplane with a 15 LA engine. I don;t have anything into the airplane and is not really worth all that much. I really don't want to tear into the rear section as I have already cobbled it back together. I was just wondering what everyone thought. Thanks.

Chad

sensei

I have seen and flown plenty of airplanes that have had out of square horizontal and vertical stabs, you can expect to have fun flying it anyway, just trim as required and have fun.

Bob

BMatthews

Up to about the tips being about 1/2 to 3/4 inch different in height from side to side and the hinge line being about the same fore and aft from end to end when viewed from above you'd be hard pressed to see any effect in the air. There will be some but it's likely that it'll be buried in other handling issues overall.

With enough air time and fine trimming you may find that you notice a slight difference when turning one way or the other or that up elevator seems to induce a slight yaw to one side more often than not. But this will take some pretty well calibrated eyeballs to see it if the rest of the model is built to the same high standards....

Bottom line? Don't worry about it. The model won't leap to one side and try to reach the center of the earth from the bad alignment.

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

Agreed, Not really an issue. I actually will eyeball this while building a new airplane rather then take the time to measure out. I do measure out the wing to verify that the wing is 90 degrees to the fuse center then sight from the front of the fuse and use the wing as reference to level the stab.

flyinwalenda

My Feedback: (5)

As long as the repair is good and it doesn't fall off during flight you should be OK.!

chadxp1

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks guys. I appreciate your input.

I like this:

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

I had a GP Super Sportster I built crooked in the same way when I was a kid. It flew fine, but it would stall the wing consistently to a certain side when slow. You may notice that it does not track perfectly straight in loops. Those small planes seem to need to be flown all of the time anyway, so I am sure you will not notice. I have found misaligned planes like that can be a lot of fun, when just throwing them around the sky. Should be a blast! What kind of plane is it?

dbacque

My Feedback: (3)

All that having been said, it really depends on the type of airplane and how you intend to fly it.

If it's a trainer or a gentle sport flyer, no problem.

If you don't much care about aerobatics or if they are straight, no problem.

But if it's something more advanced and you want to work on more precise aerobatics, an out of line stab will cause roll problems every time you pull or push on the elevator. Loops will corkscrew. Pulling from level to vertical flight will be compromised. Snaps will be different in one direct than the other. If it will be acceptable all of depends on the degree of misalignment and your desired flight characteristics.

I have been known to completely disassemble a newly completed airplane to straighten out the tail surfaces after flying them and I've always been glad I did. If you want to fly accurately, you need an accurate airplane. If you just want to knock it around, it probably doesn't matter.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some very out of alignment airplanes that based on how people wanted to fly I recommended that they not worry about it, just go fly and have fun.

Dave

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Not knowing the exact model, but judging from the size, it is very unlikely that it is a precision design. While I do have a FunX 1/2 A pattern plane, that is really almost a .15 size, that is one of the only types of models in this size that would be considered precision. Or that whole 1/2A class of pattern. Otherwise, most planes in that size are throw arounds.

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

Alignment can be a funny thing. Years ago, a friend of mine built a simple glider. The fuselage was bowed and twisted, the flight surfaces not well aligned. When we flew the airplane it flew straight! Apparently, all the misalignments cancelled each other out at the speeds the glider flew at. It was a fun flyer until he made a misjudgement and had a plane-destroying crash (pilot error).

flycatch

My Feedback: (26)

Interesting replies but far from the truth. Depending upon the total area of the stabilizer it will bank/roll opposite the misalignment. I purchased an ARF with a twisted fuselage that I overlooked until the maiden flight and found the airplane wanted to roll left. Fortunately I was able to shim the stab and problem solved.

sensei

Your statement indicates that the rest of us are lying about our experience with flying airplanes with less then perfect alignment, with that said I am sure your problem was an isolated case, maybe even further aggravated by a poor setup on your part. who knows?

Bob

Hossfly

HA HA! Great come-back answer. I learned a lot from being a free-flight competition flier and a CL Stunt Flier prior to RC. Many poorly aligned RC models can be trimmed out to fly OK for funsies. I once asked a very prominent CL Racer ( I never raced to speak of) what certain items he did to his engines' venturei did. He was a good friend and he told me that they helped very little, however they drove the competition crazy. Some things do work even though they are not well accepted especially those with all the answers.

sensei

I also learned allot from flying free flight and ukies long before I ever flew R/C, and the more I actually think about it; in the R/C realm one could actually mount the vertical in place of the horizontal and vice versa at an extreme and trim it out for normal flight... LOL

Bob

da Rock

Probably true that surfaces swap could be trimmed to fly, but it's doubtful it would handle normally. Very probably you'd have a model that hunted in level flight like crazy and turned it's first loop into a figure 9.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

It was always felt in the other disciplines (Free Flight, and Control line) , That RCers, were the worst builders! lol Generally.