Leveling wings for mounting flaperons

[Dhallmark 0]

Asked this in the mk4 sub forum as well but didn’t get any responses so I’ll try here. Bought and Avid Champion which is basically a single seat Mk4. It has the same stol/heavy hauler wing as the mk just a little shorter and built with lighter spars. It came with two construction manuals, one for the champion which is pretty vaugue and really only has a few pages of variations about wing construction as opposed to the mk4 and a parts/component breakdown section, and a mk4 manual that I guess you just kind of wing it and use for the rest of the construction. The champion manual may not be complete. Anyhow, my question is this, I’m to the point of mounting the flaperons and rigging everything before tear down and final paint and reassembly and if I go by the mk4 manual it says to level the wings at the rib just inside the jury struts starting with right wing because it has the non adjustable lift strut then the left wing adjusting the heim joint until the left wing is level. At that point you clamp the flaperons in place and adjust the flaperon hinge mount to be at a 50 degree angle off the back of the rib tip. The problem is when I level the wing I expected the doorsill of the plane to be level in relation to the wing but it’s not. With the wings leveled the fuselage has a very nose down attitude and even the motor looks like it has a very pronounced downward thrust line. Is this normal on the avids or should I maybe level off the doorsill instead? When I do level the fuselage versus the wing it looks a lot more like the level flight “stance” I would think the plane would have in flight. Sorry for the long post. I know most guys don’t know much about the champion. I believe there were only about ten built and this one is number nine. Hope someone can help. 

Thanks! 

Damon

[Allen Sutphin 705]

Some aircraft the wing will not be level with the fuselage due to how much incidence is in the wing. One would level the fuselage in doing a weight and balance calculation. In flight you are flying the wing and the fuselage is along for the ride. Some aircraft have a nose down attitude in flight and even climb slightly nose down because of the wing design. I would follow the manual unless I was 100% sure it was incorrect. If the fuselage was pre-welded in a jig then the mounting points are most likely correct and the wing will not be level with fuselage.Check out a few pictures on the net and compare the angle of the wing to the fuselage. Its hard to give a definite answer so follow the manual.

[Dhallmark 0]

Thanks Allen. It’s a factory welded fuse and I’ve checked level on it in multiple places. Just looks way nose down. The problem with looking at other pics is that there are so few of them on the net. The manual for the manual for the champion is very sparse (basically just a supplementary manual to the mk4 manual that addresses some of the differences ) and I’ll go by that unless by chance somebody on here has a champion and has a different take on it. Thanks again for the input!

[wypaul 448]

If I recall correctly with the MK IV this is just a construction technique for mounting and rigging the flaperons and wings. If you follow the manual it will work just fine. 

Edited 6 Feb 2019 by wypaul