Wing Alignment
 

Focus is cork-screwing to the left in loops. I have adjustable wings to work with. Can someone tell me if my thinking is right or wrong. I'm thinking left wing needs to be raised at trailing edge and right wing lowered (view from back of plane). Does this sound right or am I backwards?

thanks for any input.

RE: Wing Alignment
 

Adjusting your wing angles may solve your problem but I would think that there is another reason. I use a laser level to line the wing up with the horizontal stabilizer, one side at a time. I had a similar problem and the problem started with too little right thrust! When I got the right thrust adjusted I needed less right rudder to get the plane to fly straight and suddenly it was tracking better in the loops. It seems that with some designs you need less rudder in a loop than when flying straight. To solve the problem fast before my last competition I made a mix that reduced left rudder when I pull up elevator, this worked well but is not the best solution.

RE: Wing Alignment
 

What about lateral balance. You could have the left side heavier than the right side.

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

RE: Wing Alignment
 

Assuming that the side thrust is correct(no yaw in a vertical climb):
If the left wing panel flies heavy,the model will screw to the left, if you pull inside loops starting from the bottom.
You can confirm that it is a heavy-flying panel,by pushing outside loops,again from the bottom.
The left panel will now be on the right,as you see it from the ground, and the model will now screw right.
If it does indeed do this, add weight to the right wing tip, a bit at a time,until the tracking is satisfactory.
If,doing the above tests, the model screws in the same direction, in inside and outside loops (starting from the bottom), then one,or both, panels have a "flying warp"(whether you can see it or not!), and you may find it best to use an elevator-to- aileron mix to correct things.

RE: Wing Alignment
 

Hello,
I agree with the lateral CG checking first.

I'm doing just that these days on my plane and the result is astonishing!

Now during pulls, especially after a downline, wing stay level so a bunch less corrections :)

RE: Wing Alignment
 

426 Miller
sounds to me you have elevator Halves off, check there first
make sure the wings are pinned tight front and rear if they have any movement
the airplane will corkscrew
next check rudder
you are keeping a positive load on the wings so I dont believe the wings being off is causing your problems
do some negative loops and see how they do
Bryan

RE: Wing Alignment
 

I've set-up four different Piedmont planes and they all had issues with wing panel incidence being identical. You might want to check wing panels for accuracy by sticking a short tube between the panels, bringing them together and taking a close look at the whole wing. The tips must be tracking identically or you will have problems. Then check incidence of each panel (on fuse) and make sure these are identical to each other. Then proceed to the stab and do the same. Don't assume the any of the panels (wing or stab) are accurately built unless Dave himself did the set-up.

MattK

RE: Wing Alignment
 

I'm an old, Old World, European, where even now, many pattern models have a one-piece wing.
The age-old advice,when joining the panels,was to make sure that the tips were aligned perfectly parallel to each other(spirit level,incidence meter,whatever), and "lose" any discrepancy at the joined root.
The other bit of advice was,if there was more than about 2-3 mm discrepancy at the root; bin them, or return to sender...

RE: Wing Alignment
 

thanks for all the input. i have checked lateral balance and it was off a little. next i checked wing incidence and the left panel was off by 1/2 a degree. next thing to check is throw on each elevator. i feel good about this as i spend a great deal of time during setup to be sure this is correct.

thanks again for all your suggestions. will try again tomorrow to see if any of the changes helped.