I am doing a repair on a plane I crashed. I broke the fuse on one side, and after the repair it looks like the fuse is a bit off, twisting a bit to the right. Will this have a significant effect on flight? I am guessing I will have to use a bit more left rudder trim am I right that this is not a big deal?

Thanks for your help!

It could be a big deal...sometimes your eyes can be confusing the best thing I can tell you is to get the fuselage in line of sight of something you know is square. For example set the fuselage on its nose and get back and sight along a door jamb thats in the distance. or lay a ruler along the top of the fuselage.

You would be surprised how out of wack an airplane can be and still be a great flyer.
I have an old Hobbico Brightstar, the horizontal stab is 1/2" further forward at one end than the other, the vertical leans off to the right. It is at about 80 degrees rather than 90 like it is suppose to be.
You would think with these flight surfaces as far off as they are it would have some kind of effect on flight but it is one of the best flying well manored planes I have had in the air.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying yours will be the same but you never know?

guys,
do what you have to to get it straight, it will be a MUCH better flyer. sure lots of planes go up not set up corectly. if you surf the RC sites at all you will run across the info that "SETUP IS EVERYTHING" line over and over. a well set up bird is a joy to fly and will allow more learning of advanced skills quicker than fighting a POS. and SAFETY is a BIG isssue hear as well. this is a skill that is learned by doing and the craftsmanship you develop by building or repairing corectly will make you a better modeler.

OzMo knows what he is talking about, you would do well to listen to him! Don't go by visual clues after a repair to see if your plane is straight, measure it out and be sure! 90 degrees means 90 degrees, do whatever it takes so that it's correct. Investing in an incidence meter and a number of steel straight edges is money well spent.

Is a twist in the fuse a big deal? Yes, most assuredly. I would not fly it like that. Certain things in RC flying can be by choice such as prop selection, color scheme, type of wheels etc, but other things are laws of physics and must be followed like it or not. Proper alignment of flying surfaces relative to the wing chord, twist and warps, and thrust lines are non-negotiable and must be correct regardless if the plane is a trainer, large scale, or 1/2A.

Spend a little time fixing it correctly now and fly with an untroubled mind.

The old Bannana fuselage syndrome.

If you have gone to the trouble to repair the airplane then repair it properly. It makes no sense to rebuild a ship that is crooked, just fix it.

John

Is it just the fuse that's out of kilter now?

If the stab/elevator was glued to it, and that fuse is now curving around, how parallel to the wing do you think the stab/elevator is now?

Depending on how bananna like the fuse is now, both the fin/rudder AND the stab/elevator are going to be working off line when they work.

How bad will it be? None of us have a snowball's chance of knowing.

If you haven't covered the fuse yet, fix it before covering. If you have, then go fly it and see. The beauty of our hobby is that it is so very easy to test things for ourselves. But if you're really worried about the bananna being hard to handle, take a picture and let us actually see how bad it looks. We'll be glad to give all manner of sage advice. And then you can have the ultimate fun this hobby offers. You can then go test and find out who guessed right and who didn't. There are lots of different ways this hobby can give us a chuckle.