I doubt there's any correlation between "less than ideal" stall
characteristics and the factory jigs. I would bet that we all agree that
no two planes are identical. The differences can be introduced at any
stage of building.
That said, all the certified aircraft have variances from perfectly
straight. They are handled with stall strips, tabs, and eccentrics to
bring the plane into conformity with the type certificate.
The design of Lancairs is leaning more towards performance, which makes our
planes more likely to show "less than ideal" characteristics if we have anything
less than perfect.
I had a long discussion with someone from Beechcraft about this
subject. They build their planes to very tight tolerances. However,
every plane behaves a little differently in flight test. They adjust the
wings to get rid of a heavy wing. Then they tape the stall strips to the
wings and do stall tests, adjusting the stall strips until they get a straight
forward break. Then the strips are bonded permanently to the leading
edges. It's my understanding that every aircraft from 172s to Lears go through
similar flight test adjustments.
I know that Tim has been working on a similar method to "tweak" our planes
to get the stall to be straight ahead and give us a little more buffet, a little
more warning.
Mike Easley