Hey guys. Just picked up my bird from several months of work. When I bought her I noticed it took to much forward trim. Just had the whole tail section gone through. Perfect condition. With any weight whatsoever in ext baggage she takes almost if not all the forward trim! Very frustrating. Lots of time in 180's and have never seen this. It has 2 blade prop and firewall battery. Pretty light 55 model. It has wing x. Could they be part of the cause? I am hitting the stops on the trim so no more adjustment left. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Did it act like this before Wing X?

Gump

I bought it with them on it gump... Doesn't seem like that would cause it but I'm at a loss. You would think I had 200lbs n the x baggage the way she flies. Flies great empty. Doesn't take xtra trim. Realllly frustrating. Makes my baggage nearly useless and could be a little dangerous. Thanks gump

What about changing the angle of incidence on the wings and check the rigging?

Riggings perfect and wings are set about in the middle. Same way my 56 was. Thanks Matt!

Talk to the other Wing X guys.. I think AKTahoe is one. If you add wing, it seems the tail would need to be tweaked more nose down to compensate. I just don't know.

And, just because the cables and jackscrew move smoothly, doesn't mean they're set correctly. Measure the angles to make sure they're correct.

Gump

If your elevator trim is working full travel and someone hasn't put 30# of lead in her tail then it must be a rigging issue. How much damage history does it have? Wing rigging probably has little to do with it, we have screwed with that over the years a lot and have never effected the trim. However I wouldn't guarantee your results would be the same because we never had a WingX. Take it to Beagle, they can probably fix it.

There is a 206 that 3 air taxis have owned that had the entire empannage replaced, with the replacement installed in a twist. It will not rig correctly, period and everyone hates it, thus the change of ownership.

Section 11 in the Cessna service manual is all about rigging the tail..... If there's another 180 on the field I'd just go measure the full throws of that stab movement and see if you're close. I'd also make sure all your cables and pulled are clear of any nuts, screws, safety wire, tools.... Let's just say I know a guy that....... (good annual catch if I do say so) but jack screws and chains tend to grab things like that. If it flew fine before the work I'd suspect the work. Good luck!

Remember, two things moving back there, the stab and the elevator. The rigging for the jackscrews is fun, but are you absolutely certain that the stop your hitting is not running out of chain on the wheel or is the jackscrew at the limit? I would also look at how the elevator horn was put back on. There is an opportunity for error when mating the tow halves to the arm. Use your iPhone, with the carpenter app, if you have one to see how much of an angle the stab goes through. If you don't have the maintenance manual, it is Up 0° 45' +- 15' and down 8° 45' +- 15', although my manual only goes back to 61. The elevator is up 25° +-1° down 23° +- 1°.

I have the opposite problem always carry weight in the back

55 Wagon -- first I'd get the bird up on a set of scales empty and check the w&b , if it came in in proper cg range -- then I'd check your getting full travel on trim (see tcds sheet ) if not correct reset to maintance manual . I fly with about 70 lbs in extended baggage (firewall mounted battery ,2 blade prop ) and don't have any issues. One flight many years ago loaded back end of airplane very heavy and was going cross-country when fuel burned off had to push nose down for running out of forward trim.

Thanks guys. Still got lots of testing to do I know. But just going off previous experiences in 180's I can tell there's an issue somewhere. I'm going to try and find some scales and start there but can't imagine why the tail would be to heavy. Just went all through it. The tail travel is good and right. The rigging is good. The only thing I can think of; and I'm no aerodynamics experts; is that with the wing x the wing produces so much lift so slow that the tail can't keep up. Maybe change eccentrics on wing to make it flatter?? I do t know... My while objective is to go slow as possible so I don't want to have to do that. In my 56 It liked a little weight in the tail also. Set up similar minus wing x. Very very frustrating. Ill try and describe a little more what its doing. Full fuel 2 front seaters and a max load passengers and regular baggage area.
Take off is 80% nose forward trim. Tail takes forever to come up. Flies shortly there after. After lift off full nose forward trim AND significant forward on yolk as you milk up the airspeed. Then around 90-100 indicated the tail starts performing better and u can back off the trim and ease into normal operations and settings. Trimmed out level flight will be about 75-80% forward trim.
Landing. As you slow the you can use a little back trim for a short time. As you slow, more and more forward trim till full forward. Then you have to find the sweet spot of flaps and power to keep it from getting to tail heavy. If u got 40 degrees and need to go around you better have lots of room. It just plows and you have to fight it hard and milk flaps off to gain any airspeed at all to get the tail to catch up with the rest of her. That's about the best my feeble mind can describe it. I'm not real good at trying to explain things so hopefully its all clear as mud. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to try and help. If anyone has wheel, wing x, heavy loaded experience and can let me know if they have anything similar that would help alot to. Keep coming with the suggestions or ask questions on flight characteristics that I can try and explain better.

55wagon wrote:The only thing I can think of; and I'm no aerodynamics experts; is that with the wing x the wing produces so much lift so slow that the tail can't keep up.

Think harder!

The tail doesn't provide lift, it does just the opposite, it provides negative lift, i.e., pushes down. If the forces produced by the tail were too small, then it would be nose heavy. You've likely got an elevator problem, a trim problem, or a c.g. problem.

I'm betting on the c.g. problem. Open up the horizontal stabilizer and remove the 50 kilos of coke that are hiding in there!

Not sure if I agree with that one but if the 50 kilos are in there then I'm not really worried about it. I mean as long as that's enough to buy another one. Not really up on the values of that either. Haha.

My experience when I installed Wing-X... I needed a little more nose-up trim than I used to, which I guessed was due to the wing now having more lift but not the tail. With the tail now having relatively less lift, needs more trim to get enough lift to balance out the tail. Your trim behavior sounds really strange... My guess is something rigged wrong in the tail.

I had to change my angle of incidence a couple times when I put the wingX on. I also put the Sportsmen on at that time as well. Never really noticed a heavy tail however only a heavier wing on one side. Seems like a CG or rigging problem to me. Curious what prop your running?

Not certain if anyone has talked about the tail, but the tail does not provide lift. It actually does the opposite but thats for another thread. Definitely thinking a rigging issue but guessing you have looked at all your cables?. Seems like you would see or know about the extra weight if it was a CG issue??

That old 55 should have the tail coming up very easy. Thats a bonus for the early models.

Good luck...you deffinetly have something going on...

AKT

AKt. Where did you end up setting your eccentrics? Ya this is a very frustrating Pandora's box. I also put the 29's on. I figured it would be tougher but does it really make it that hard to get the tail up sitting still? It takes a ton of power to get the tail up. I'm already afraid I got hoodwinked on this old bird. Now I've dumped a pot load in it and stuck with it. No damage history but alot of the tail cone reskinned. Gotta love that. I learn lessons the hard way I guess. Bad bad feeling in my stomach. And I'm running the 88 Mac btw.
Just for kicks. Anyone know what there tail weighs if you put just it on a scale? I'm going to do weight balance but that'll be a few days. Thought maybe I could get an idea of anything major if some

Oops
If someone know what they're tail weighs just sitting there. I'm goin nuts here. Thanks again all!!!

kevbert and akt are correct, our tails do not 'fly' up they 'fly' down to counter the weight of the engine. This lends to pitch stability, it would be possible to design without the need to have the tail fly down, but the net result would be instability in pitch.

Most lift enhancing wing mods do not change the center of lift enough to require a change at the tail. When a wing mod does require a change in the tail, it is not usually as a result of a change in the center of lift (felt as a CG change) it is as a result of the old tail not having enough authority to stall the new wing. A requirement both in certification and from an operational standpoint (think landing).

In this case there is no problem stalling the wing, recovering from a stall on the other hand, may very well prove impossible when loaded up heavy.

Beyond that, know a few of your mods i.e.; heavy 185 gear, big wheels, heavier engine, firewall battery, etc, I would say that you should be at the fwd edge of the envelope and be nose heavy if anything...

I'll also go out on a limb and suggest the reason for akt's need to adjust eccentrics was to correct heavy wing issues due to the inevitable slight differences when adding wing mods, not as a result of a c of l , or c of g change.

At the end of the day, I think that if you don't find some freakish CG issue (kilos, honey bees, mud daubers etc in your verticle stab, lead in the tail from a previous engine installment) you are going to find one of two things. Either;
a) the travel of the stab is not reaching it's limits and staying there or
b) there has been an undocumented (go figure) repair to the top deck, door posts, or tail that is affecting the AOI (not AOA).
Wish I could be there to help / confuse the situation more, but you know my current status

I have no doubt that an hour with the manual, a flashlight, mirror, and a smart level would answer what your looking for. Fixing on the other hand.....


Good luck and keep in touch!

Just caught your weight question, my bird as you saw it weights 99.8 lbs on the tail in level flight attitude. It's probably worth reminding you that I am on the straight legs. Off the top of my head on fwd gear I am going to say 115-125ish would be 'normal' at empty weights in the 1650-1700# ish range.