I had a list of things to look at on other RVs when I was in Oshkosh, to see what other builders had done, and to get an idea of what the typical quality was. One of my concerns was the alignment between the ailerons and wing tips. Ideally, the outboard edges of both ailerons would match up perfectly with the inboard edges of the wing tips. With both ailerons rigged in the neutral position, my right aileron matches up. The left wing tip sits about 3/16" above the aileron. This could be fixed with some major surgery on the fibreglas wing tip, but I wasn't looking forward to it.
My first wing tip data point was on the very nice 1998 Cessna 172 that I was a passenger in on the way to and from Oshkosh. On that aircraft, if one aileron was lined up with its wing tip, the other aileron was misaligned by about one inch, or about five times the misalignment that I have.
It was apparent from studying RVs at OSH, that many builders take great care to get perfect alignment between their wing tips and ailerons. But, many other aircraft have misalignments that is about the same as mine, and some aircraft are much worse. The easiest answer is to note that RVs are generally parked with the flaps in the down position, to ensure that no one steps on the trailing edge of the flaps when boarding the aircraft. I would be quite possible to simply raise the ailerons very slightly above the neutral line, so both of them line up with the wing tips. This would put them slightly higher than the flaps, when the flaps are up. I suspect that such a tiny rigging change would have no effect on the performance or handling.
The trailing edge of the left wing tip also extended about 1/4" further aft than the trailing edge of the aileron. I trimmed the trailing edge last weekend. This week I've been working on some areas on the left wing tip that are too low. I've also been fitting the rib that goes inside the aft part of the wing tip. I hadn't fitted that rib before, as it couldn't be done until I had made a decision on whether to modify the wing tip trailing edge to sort out the alignment issue.
This evening I worked to sort out the final fitting of the left wing tip trailing edge rib. When I fitted the right wing tip trailing edge, I noted that I needed some shims to make it fit the contour of the wing. Same thing with the left side. Tonight I did several rounds of fit and shim, but the fit was getting worse each time I added new shims. I finally realized that I had miscounted rivets, and was shimming in the wrong place. I finally figured out the right mix of shims, then primed them. I'll rivet the tip rib in place tomorrow.
