Elevator balance

18 Aug 2005 Elevator balance

I asked Van’s about balancing the elevators, and they
recommended just putting the counterweights on, and not
worrying about balancing it. A bit to heavy is apparently
not a problem.

Ideally, the elevators would be perfectly balanced. If the
counterweights are too heavy, the elevator will tend to move towards
the nose up position. The amount of nose up force created by the too
heavy counterweight will vary linearly with the amount of g you
pull. In other words, having the nose heavy will reduce the amount
of stick force required to pull g. RVs already have quite light
stick forces at aft CG. I would not want to further reduce the stick
force per g.

Kevin Horton