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When to Rig Ailerons & Flaps?

skelrad

Well Known Member
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Is there a reason to temporarily rig the ailerons and flaps as soon as I'm finished building them, or do I just wait until I'm done painting to attach and rig them? I will attach bellcrank brackets and all of the innards into the wing right away, but how far do I go with the rest? I haven't quite wrapped my head around all of the steps that will happen in the future for rigging wings and control surfaces, so I'm not sure which steps need to be done now and which steps just don't matter because things get pulled apart for paint anyway.
 
Assuming you are a paint before you fly guy, I recommend:
- Completely assemble the plane - use hardware store bolts for the wings and such. Do not fit wingtips until the last step.
- Allot a week or two for control surface rigging. Get another builder to help as the extra set of eyeballs in invaluable. You want to identify rigging issues before paint - examples include ailerons hanging low/high, flaps not coming all the way up, control surfaces not meeting deflection specifications, etc.
- After the flaps and then ailerons are at final rig, then fit the wingtips. Do not do the reverse.

You disassemble the plane knowing you are going to paint with parts that only need assembly when done. I recommend painting the plane with the wings removed. For me this allows the fuselage to fit in my paint booth as well as rotating the wings during paint.

Carl
 
Why wait on the wingtips?

When you fit the wingtips you will find during the process that there is a lot of movement of the trailing wingtip trailing edge.

You want to get the pleasing result of flaps, aileron and wingtip trailing edges in line when done. Rigging the flaps then the ailerons first before fitting the wingtips supports this objective.

If you follow the instructions and just rig the ailerons with whatever alignment tool is associate with your kit to then fit the wingtips you will get close. But as you control when you fit wingtips, why not wait until you have completed the other rigging to make sure?

Carl
 
Rigging

In my experience all of the initial rigging was best done part-way through construction, with the wings temporarily attached to the fuselage (needs to be done anyway before painting to set wing incidence, root fairings etc.) Having just rigged my -6A, here is some of the detail:

Aileron pushrod tube length was established by measuring with the wings on, before cutting the tubes and riveting on the end fittings.
If the wing are on the fuselage then the aileron pushrod tubes can only be inserted into the wing from the wing tip end. So the tip fairing must be off.
The aileron limit stops need to be drilled and riveted onto the bracket
The holes in the fuselage for the flap actuator links need to be cut and filed iteratively. This took many cycles to make the holes the minimum size and correct shape.
The elevator travel stops needed to be filed to set up travel limits.
The rudder travel stops needed to be cut and riveted to the rear fuselage.
There was some grinding/filing required on the floor ribs so that the aileron pushrod tubes cleared the ribs at the travel limits for elevators and ailerons. That means all the control surfaces should be fitted,when rigging flaps and ailerons.
If there are autopilot servos then the mounts need to be fitted and the servos installed and linkages checked.
 
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