Long body elevator trim

[MIm20c]

When I set my trim on my C for takeoff the front weight sits about an inch below the horizontal stabilizer. However, in flight it’s even which makes sense. In contrast the long body has about an inch and a half correction below the stabilizer during cruise flight. This looks like a lot of extra drag so I had a MSC check it during our last annual, they said the plane was rigged correctly. 

Is this normal with the trimming tail?  It almost feels/looks like the elevator and tail are fighting each other. 

[N201MKTurbo]

You can test fly it to see if it is the most efficient setting. It is a pain to do, but you will find it is the most efficient setting.

You can trim it 1/2 turn at a time, muscle it back to level with the yoke and record the airspeed. Do this bot( nose up and nose down. You will get to a trim setting that will have the elevator aligned with the horizontal stabilizer. It will look great but it will not be the fastest setting. You will find the fastest setting will be where Mooney tells you to put it. The elevator bungees are there to set that position.

[PT20J]

We went through this in another thread a while back. Conclusion was that when trimmed the original short bodies cruise with elevator aligned, mid bodies cruise with elevator slightly trailing edge down and long bodies cruise trailing edge up. It has to do with the trim system interaction with the variable incidence tail design. That’s just the way it is, there’s nothing wrong. It doesn’t create a lot of drag. Trim drag is the induced drag of the tail to create a tail down force and the incremental induced drag of the wing to create additional lift to carry the tail down force. The small increase in profile drag from the elevator not being exactly in trail is small by comparison.

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