SonexBuilders.net

I had my first flight in the new to me Waiex. I bought the plane in the very early stages of phase one testing.
First impression was great. It just wanted to take off, even at 4000da. I throughly enjoyed flying it.
I definitely needed to use my skills as a heli pilot for the controls. They are as sensitive as an R22.

My one main question is this: I had to hold considerable right stick. If I relaxed on the controls, the plane wanted to roll on over. Not a left turn tendency, but a significant left roll, very heavy left wing. I am curious if this is just because of my “excess” weight or a normal flight characteristic? Is there anything I can do to counter this? Aileron or possibly flap adjustment….

Any help or information would be great!

I have 30 hours or so in a Waiex, and I can assure you that even with excess weight on one side you should not get a rolling tendency like that. Something sounds amiss with the rigging. Did you get the Waiex plans with the aircraft? You can double check all the rigging numbers (alignment, deflections, etc). That's the place to start.

First place I would check (as it solved my left-roll tendancy) is the rigging of the flaps. Make sure that the right flap can fully retract. Shorten the pushrod if possible (1-turn at a time at the rod-ends.) I actually needed to re-drill the piano hinge on my right flap as the front-top edge of the flap was touching the trailing edge wing skin a bit too high, resulting in the flap artificially not able to retract as far up as the left flap.

After that, try lengthening the pushrod on the left flap to have it deflect down some. Try 1 turn of the fastener, fly it, rinse, repeat. Always check for sufficient pushrod + rod end thread engagement.

I can't think of anything in the aileron rigging that would cause this problem, aside from a bent, warped, or improperly built aileron that was acting like a trim tab upon itself. Since the ailerons are aerodynamically free to float, adjusting aileron pushrods won't do anything to solve an inherent roll problem.

CONGRATS on your first flight!!!

As others have noted, flaps are first suspect. In the A series, the linkage is actually quite flexible. Have someone hold one flap while you move the other. On my standard A Sonex, flap handle is on the left side, and thus right flap has more movement than the left one. Peter sells adjustable stop blocks that fit under the upper edge of the rear spar to provide positive up limit stops . The small angle riveted to the sides of the fuselage may look like upper limit stops, BUT the trailing edge of the flaps is only slightly stiffer than damp spaghetti and dopes not do much. Best to remove those angles until you have the flaps set, then reinstall for the purpose of blocking airflow.

I found that on takeoff, my right flap was pushing its top leading edge under the top trailing edge of the rear spar. After making my own version of Peter's adjustable stops, (Nylon toilet seat bolts work for this.) I made permanent solid stops from plastic, but even a couple of small hard wood blocks should work.

In our small two seat'rs, flying solo will be different than flying with passenger, I have mine rigged to requite slight force one way when solo and the other way with normal sized passenger.

David A.

I had the same problem on the Waiex I purchased. It turned out the ruddervader‘s had a slight twist and I had to adjust from 1/3 down from the top instead of the bottom to get the turning tendency out since the flaps and ailerons were rigged perfectly.