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(Cochrane Alberta Canada) Follow recent flights at: https://aprs.fi/cgmbk *******************Also YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfxJXIwvmfNlNF3gwplFw7Q

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Aircraft Aft Wing is being Re-Angled

Day 6:  The aft wing has been cut free.
I have been busy daily at the hangar working to correct my problem.   With help from a local fellow here in Calgary that also has a quickie (not yet flying), we were able to determine the root of the problem is the wing angles.   I did major reading on the Quickie forum and found out a few others have had the same problem when building to the level lines in the drawings.  This angle reference between the two wings is called decalage.    We measured the angle of degrees many times and found I am out by three degrees.  The front canard wing should be set to climb at + 1 to +1.5 degrees if the aft wing is considered to be at 0 degrees.  This is as a result of, my incorrect rebuilding using the level lines.   You may know that I had the fuselage completely cut in half at one time and when I re-assembled I did not get the angles correct.  We took a bunch of angle measurements on my airplane and then did the same on my neighbors Quickie Q2 aircraft, his is correct with his Canard about +1.5 degrees.  My rear wing was lifting by around +2 degrees over the Canard if the canard was considered at 0 degrees.  This was backwards to what it  should have been.  Some early builders had the same problem building to the 0 level lines.  My decision was to re-angle the aft wing which would be easier than doing the front canard.  In six days I have completed cutting away the aft wing, it is now rotated -3 degrees, this will result in a decalage of +1 to +1.5 on the Canard (forward wing) if the aft wing is then considered to be at 0 degrees.   The wing was then flipped and the underside sanded in prep for the bonding and fiberglass tape,  Then there will be surface repairs and turtle deck repairs to complete.
When I bought the plane it was flown with 2 people on board and about 1/2 fuel.  My ferry flight home which ended in an engine outage and damaging forced landing on the highway did allow me to note the aircraft was trimming for level flight very well.  Many of these planes are active with most having the larger 100 hp (heavier) engine, some are also racing on a regular basis so my nose heavy attitude was really confusing me.  But hey, building is as much fun as flying.