Super Cub Aileron Upgrade

Now that I feel comfortable flying the Super Cub with 3 Channels I decided to give ailerons a try. I won't go into great detail on the build as I followed Dave Smith's blog . The toughest part for me was getting the angle smooth on the bottom side of the aileron to allow it to travel down. Also, I ended up re-cutting the ailerons from 1" to 1.5" deep. I used an old, slightly damaged wing to provide the larger ailerons. I decided to do this as it was clear after the first flight that 1" provided no authority in the air. Also, I went back and forth on whether to reduce the wing's dihedral. In the end I did try to flatten the wing out by putting on book on it over night.

Flying Impressions:

In all honesty it doesn't fly as well as I hoped. I think my ailerons may still be too small and the dihedral too great. I have run into what I believe is "adverse yaw" which means the plane tends to yaw in the opposite direction of the intended turn. To learn more about this well known effect, read this link. This effect can be countered by coordinated the turn by applying rudder input. I find that I can do decent turns by using both rudder and aileron as well as up elevator. I can't make the plane to aileron rolls, likely due to the aileron's fighting the wing's dihedral which was designed to self right as it is a trainer. All in all it is still fun to play around with and should give me some aileron experience for future planes. I may try messing around with the dihedral more at some point to see if that helps.

Here are some pics with the original 1" ailerons.