Great weather today for flight testing. Calm winds and high ceilings.

Morning flight summary:
Loaded additional 100 lb ballast in baggage area in addition to the 150 lbs in co-pilot seat. Topped of tanks. With flight bag, total take-off weight 2135 lbs. CG calculated at 87.69 (91% aft). Disabled ESC. Flew 2.7 hours in practice area.

Pitch control
With aft CG had no issues with pitch authority at any flap setting.

Roll Gain
AP is doing better job handling small heading changes with aileron trim in center position, but has more trouble with large heading changes.

AoA
Was able to successfully calibrate AoA using AP in IAS mode with full flaps, starting at 90 kts for min visible, 75 kts, for caution yellow, and power off stall for stall red. Stalled at about 50 kts with full flaps.

Afternoon Flight Summary
Re-enabled ESC. Noticed I didn't have AP trim control selected which explains the observations before. Used values AP settings from Mike at Garmin for RV-14. The AP worked pretty well as long as roll trim was set manually first before engaging AP. This must be done often, otherwise, AP has tendency to pull and hold trim to extreme of range. Not sure why it's doing this. While hand flying, roll can be trimmed out with about 30% left trim, meaning plane has tendency to roll right with neutral ailerons. When trimmed, the AP handles heading changes well, but when untrimmed, the AP does not seem to be adjusting trim properly. Sent an email to g3xexpert about the issue.

Aileron rigging is correct since I checked both wings with the template. I also set the trim motor in the spring neutral position during calibration. So, if I require left trim for level flight, there is something causing differential lift, and causing a clockwise roll. Some possibilities are: offset flaps, wing twist, aileron twist. Only thing I can really adjust are the flaps.




-