Control Rigging on a Short Body Mooney

[N9136V]

I posted the same to the Mooney Tech list:

Flying up to Manassas last week gave me the opportunity to test a few things out and make a few observations in some stable air.  Here's what I've got:

During Climb out and Cruise, the right wing flies low.
During Cruise, the TC ball is very slightly off center to the right (no rudder input).
During Climbout, the ball is about half a ball off to the right (which I would expect is normal).

Trimmed in level flight, Looking back at the tail, the r/h elevator shows about half an inch of counterweight above the stabilizer.  The L/H is about flush. In other words, the r/h elevator is a bit "nose down" relative to the left hand elevator.

Trimmed in level flight, the R/H aileron counterweight sits below the top of wing.  The L/H aileron counterweight is about flush. Again, R/H wing is low and PC is maintaining heading.

Disconnecting the PC by pulling the button out produces a very noticeable roll to the left.

During Turbulence, the airplane has a tendency to roll/change heading to the left.  I'll assume that this is due to the lag in the PC and the Left Roll Tendency of the aircraft as it is currently rigged.

On the ground, there is very little slop between the r/h and l/h elevator, AND the elevators appear to be closely aligned.

Looks like there is very good reason to rig this pig.

To my knowledge, there have been no past attempts to rig this plane.  There is evidence, however, of an attempt to correct that the Left-Wing-Heavy condition - there R/H aileron trailing edge appears to have been bent down a bit.

In my typical fashion, I'm going to attempt to do the rigging.  I've been reviewing the rigging procedures, and know of a few places that I can get travel boards from. 

I'd appreciate hearing from any of you who have done control rigging on your planes, or have had others do control rigging on your plane, to learn from your experiences.

Vincent Bozik

1969 M20C N9136V KAHN

[triple8s]

My plane had an aileron replaced some time back in the mid 90's before I bought it and on the first flight it had a slight right turn tendency. Upon checking the ailerons I discovered a misalignment so I adjusted the linkage at the rh belcrank, till they were even, this solved the prob. Sounds like your elevator is out of alignment, from what you've said, I would look closely at the logs and see if there has been any damage recorded or parts replaced in the elevator area that could give reason for the elevator to be out of alignment. I would definately NOT bend any control surface. I'm sure there is somebody on here who knows more on this than me, so maybe they'll chim in here, however I do know a trim tab deflection causes drag, bent control surfaces cause drag plus they can be structurally weakened as well.  

[N9136V]

There weren't any changes to control surfaces during painting - other than removal, paint, balance, reinstall.

As far as Trauma, there was a gear up back in the early 70's.  There's also a small patch on the trailing edge of the r/h aileron - evidence of a bit of hangar rash.

I'll be doing an oil change this week, and will study everything in it's current configuration on the plane a bit further.  I don't intend to make any changes until I get a set of rigging boards, but I may be able to discover where the problem(s) may likely be.

Vincent Bozik