Remi,
I am not offering any suggestions, but I am intrigued as to your
description of the control surfaces looking normal. When you looked at
the control surfaces with the flaps up and with the heavy right wing,
were the ailerons in line with the flaps and the wing tips on both
wings, or was the right aileron slightly down and the left one up to
counteract the tendency to roll right?
With the flaps / wheel down for landing was the aircraft back in
balance?
If the left flap had not fully retracted, I would have thought the
aileron and flap would not have lined up, particularly on the left wing.
If it were a stone that had caused the problem, perhaps speed kit
fairings would have guarded the hinges and outrigger mechanisms against
that. I presume you have not fitted them?
Best wishes,
William
----- Original Message -----
From: R=C3=A9mi Guerner
To: europa-list@matronics.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 7:52 PM
Subject: Europa-List: heavy wing
Hello all,
During my vacation in the french Alps, I had the following incident:
after
take of from a rough mountain strip, I felt a strong roll tendency to
the
right, just after having retracted the landing gear. The airplane was
controllable with a significant effort on the stick. I first thought I
had
a control jamming but in fact there were no jamming, but only a heavy
wing feeling. Rolling to the left was very difficult. Looking at the
control surfaces, I could not see anything unusual. Reducing the
airspeed
decreased the effort to keep the wings level. Cycling the landing gear
/
flaps did not change the situation. I decided not to land on the
closest
airstrip but instead fly to a bigger airfield were I new I could find
help.
After half an hour of a stressful flight and a direct approach in
order to
avoid turning left in the pattern, the landing was uneventful. On the
ground the controls were absolutely normal. I decided I would not take
off
again without having checked the integrity of all the roll control
system. With the help of friends, we removed the wings so that I could
inspect all control rods, bellcranks, torque tubes, bearings and quick
connect system. We found absolutely nothing. We put the plane back
together and off I went. Everything was back to normal. I flew a
dozen times since that day without experiencing the problem again.
What could have caused this
heavy wing? I see one possibility: during the take off roll, a stone
may have been
thrown by the main wheel or outrigger wheel and ended up in the left
outrigger mechanism or the left flap slot, therefore preventing the
left
flap to fully retract and causing the airplane to roll to the right.
Cycling the gear did not dislodge the stone but the bump on landing
did.
Has anyone experienced a similar problem ?
Remi Guerner
F-PGKL, XS S/N395 monowheel, 912S, Airmaster, 425 hours
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