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[September 18, 2007]


I wasn't completely happy with how to line up the trailing edge in the trail/neutral position so I invented an alignment bracket to put onto the aileron. Its simply just some 1" scrap wood held together with a couple of aluminum plates. The goal here is to put a hole right off the trailing edge to put a cleco in.


I installed the aileron alignment thing on the aileron bellcrank. I put some paper on the spar to keep from scratching it.


Next I popped in 3 clecos that I used to align the trailing edge. Two of them in the end wing rib, the other in my aileron bracket.


Next I used a 4' rule to line up all three clecos. Its not perfect, but its as close as possible. You can't get it perfect because you are increments of 1/2 turns on the end bearing for the bellcrank to aileron pushrod.


Here is a close up of the aileron alignment jig I made. You can see how I followed the contour of the aileron skin to where the intersect. I drilled a #12 hole there and put in a cleco.


Now that the aileron was in perfect trail, time to mount the flap. According to the plans, the flap to aileron spacing should be 1/4". Here is the outboard end of the hinge clamped down.


And the outboard end.


Don't let this log entry fool you, I have been futzing with this alignment for many many days. Tonight was the night I wanted to commit myself to mounting it for good. I ended up with a 0.300" gap between the outboard flap and the wing.


And a 0.300" on the inboard end.


Here is the part I couldn't get to align perfectly. The front of the flap-aileron spacing was 0.247".


And the aft of the flap-aileron spacing was 0.264". I was thinking that this gap wasn't as critical since you will never see it. When RV's are parked, the flaps are down to facilitate getting in and out of the plane. However, there is only a 0.017" difference, which is less than 1/32". I can handle that kind of misalignment.


The last check was laying a rule along the trailing edge. I also put my smartlevel along the trailing edge of the flap and aileron to make sure they were the same angle. After everything was set, I committed to drill all the holes between the aft of the wing to the flap hinge. It feels great to have this all done.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023