I have a thunder tiger trainer .60. It is my fist plane,and I have no aerodynamic skill,theory,etc...My local hobbie shop and club isn't that local so I am trying to learn as much as I can online,and correct my mistakes befor my first lesson.I'm hopping to spend more time in the air than having my teacher tell me a list of mistakes to fix and have to reschedule my flying lesson.My recent concern is the gap between the wings and what I am assuming is refered to as the control surfaces,rudder,ailerons,elevator?my plane came with barrel type hinges,similar to a typical house door,having a pin in the center.I flush mounted the hinges,and this left a gap of about 1/16th to an 8th of an inch gap between the wings and control surfaces.Ive readsome threads that talk about gapless hinge joints using monocote.This leads me to beleive that this may be a critical error on my part.Common sense tells me that less gap is definately better for the surfaces to properly control air flow and am assuming my airplane will take more effort to control and take longer to react to my inputs.With this being said,I guess my real question would be,just how bad is this plane going to be to control?Also,to correct this,how do I get these hinges off the wings with out breaking anything?I used 30 miniute epoxy to glue them in.I was thinking about just covering the gaps with monocote as it seems to be the easiest way to correct the problem,without damaging anything.Also, would the extra layer of monocote cause any issues? Please, any feedback will be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Hey:
A good way to seal your hinge gap is to cut a strip of monokote about 1" wide (same color as the surface) and apply one edge to the fixed surface then down into the bevel, then (after removing the clevis) deflect the aileron or elevator the FULLEST amount possible and seal it against the beveled egde of the control surface.
I hope I have explained this clearly enough.
The hinge gap isn't a serious issue unless you fly fast of pulling form a steep dive. Excessive gap can cause FLUTTER. Flutter can and will cause serious control problems and I've even seen control surfaces leave an aircraft due to flutter.
You're doing the right thing by sealing these gaps.
If your fixed surface is a different color than the control surface, you can get clear monokote to seal these gaps!


Tom

You want the smallest gap possible. While trainers don't get to ohi ont eh speed chart, sealing teh hinge line isn't a bad idea (but no necessary on a trainer) if the gap is larger than a 1/16" see about reseating the hinges. You can shove them into the wood a bit, to further close off the gap, jsut don't bind the control surface!

If the model is new, you can also use a thin strip of packing tape to seal the hinge line

One way to reduce hinge gap is to taper the bottom leading edge of the control surface. The top of the surface should almost touch the trailing edge of the wing, horizontal or vertical stabilizer. Place the hinges as close to the top of the control surface as possible. The surface will move up because there is very little interference. The downward of left/right movement will be limited to the angle of the tapered part of the surface.
Let's see if I can demonstrate on this keyboard. |\ vertical line is the wing or stab, angled line is the taper of the control surface. This has always worked for me, just hope I made it clear.