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Active Member
I'm in a bit of a jam - quite literally...
My airplane design has a cantelever wing and full span flaperons with a very similar layout to the RV12, except they are slotted. Each flaperon is about 10ft long with three hinges - one on each end and one more in the middle. The hinges are spherical bearings just like the RV12.
In the assembly jig, the flaperon moves effortlessly. However, I was concerned what would happen with wing deflection so I did a test where I loaded the wing up with 650lbs of sandbags to simulate 1g load and the flaperon binds up to the point where it requires a more than acceptable force to move.
The attached image shows the center hinge with with the bolt removed, which clearly demonstrates the relative deflection issue.
I figured as many airplanes have flaperons such as this, there may be a solution out there. Any thoughts very welcome.
Thanks
Fly More
My airplane design has a cantelever wing and full span flaperons with a very similar layout to the RV12, except they are slotted. Each flaperon is about 10ft long with three hinges - one on each end and one more in the middle. The hinges are spherical bearings just like the RV12.
In the assembly jig, the flaperon moves effortlessly. However, I was concerned what would happen with wing deflection so I did a test where I loaded the wing up with 650lbs of sandbags to simulate 1g load and the flaperon binds up to the point where it requires a more than acceptable force to move.
The attached image shows the center hinge with with the bolt removed, which clearly demonstrates the relative deflection issue.
I figured as many airplanes have flaperons such as this, there may be a solution out there. Any thoughts very welcome.
Thanks
Fly More
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