I just maidened my OMP Edge 540 47" profile plane. The plane pulls to the left while flying, and when I tried to pull into a hover it seems like it takes alot of rudder input to keep her pointed straight up. When I do a fly by and let go of the controls to see how she flys with hands-off-flying, she will slowly pull to the left. Also full throtle climbs are anything but straight up. I just wanted to make sure that if the plane is pulling left it means I need more right thrust and also when I add right thrust to the engine the nose should point a little more towards the left, is that correct?

I beleve you have that backwards. When you have right thrust the crankshaft of the engine will be pointing toward the right when looking at the airplane from above and the rear.

That might be my problem, I bought some 2.5 degree thrust plates from OMP. I installed the thrust plate with the thick side towards the back of the engine, which is cocking the engine to the left of the plane. So do I need to swap it?

YES

The thick bit should be at the FRONT.

You want right side thrust.

Ok thanks

Hows about you need to fly with your rudder rather than artificially build in a trim that works well at one throttle setting, but not so well at other throttle inputs. Have you ever set your plane up with the engine at zero/zero and just flown it?

Bill

Im actually still a little confused on this whole right thrust issue, looking at my Aeroworks Edge 540T, the left side of the plane where it meets up with the firewall is shorter than the right side, and my engine is pointing towards the left.

Thats almost like saying the engineers should have never designed the F-22 with thrust vectoring, why not just fly the plane normally like a F-15 which doesnt have thrust vectoring. Right thrust is just to help improve flight characteristics.

[link=http://www.rcaerobats.net/trim_chart.htm]Go here[/link] and look at up/down thrust #1+2, and side thrust. It's about half way down the page. Note that the chart is meant to be followed in order.

Planes generally need right (and down) thrust. If you're the pilot, the engine should be pointing to the right and down. This all stems from the fact that the prop is sending swirling air over the plane and control surfaces. The top of this link talks about using mixes as another way to compensate for the spiraling air. It's up to you if you want to use mixes or make mechanical changes.

Yes it certainly appears that you have added left thrust rather than right. Usually on many some right thrust is built into it. Anyhow take your shims out and try it, if it still pulls left then put them in so thrust line is pointed to right looking from rear.

This is what right thrust looks like. In this case the airplane is pointing straight up and you are looking at it from the top side. It's a profile controlline plane which better illustrates how the engines crankshaft litterally point to the right. If there is down thrust also (which there is none on this airplane) the crankshaft would also litterally be pointing down toward the ground.

John

ok, just curious as to how much right thrust that is?

It is a measured four degrees via Robart incidence gauge.