Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net> (Marvin Kaye)
To: lml
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 23:36:21 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-1751015@logan.com>
From: "Gary Casey" <glcasey@adelphia.net>
Subject: elevator balancing
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<<The Lancair "balance kit" adds an aluminum arm and lead weight as a center
pivot to statically balance both elevators as an assembly.  The problem is
that I just don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling with this solution.  Having
two elevators with grossing different weights hanging on the back of the
plane' even with added weight in the center, I find very disturbing.  Am I
missing the obvious???>>

I am certainly not the expert, but have a couple of observations:  First,
the elevators aren't uniformly balanced anyway as the weights are at the
ends.  Not being balanced end-to-end, though, could be a little troubling.
The best way may be to take some weight out of the "overbalanced" one and
then use the center weight to bring it up to balance, creating three weights
that distribute the balance.  Second, consider two production airplanes - my
Cardinal has no balance weights except for the big one in the center.  Next,
the Comanche was originally built with a single weight in the center, but to
increase the red-line speed someone came up with weights to put at the tips.
This implies that it would be a good thing to distribute the weight along
the span.

Gary Casey
certainly not even an amateur aerodynamicist