Hinges

How close together should plastic hingers be? I have been putting them about 6" apart. My airplane ran out of fuel in a loop so I pulled full up to bring it around for an emergency landing. If the airplane had been 3 ft higher I would have made it. Landing gear is smashed FLAT and elevator hinges all but 1 broke off. Seems to me if I had more hinges maybe it would have been stronger and held together. The landing gear acted like a spring and saved the airplane. Its funny both wheels were pushed up even with the leading edge of the wing. The asphalt scraped the mono coat on the under side of the wing in a few places. No balsa wood wing damage. A few bandaid patches on the mono coat will fix it. I also think some good cloth hinges would have been better than plastic hinges.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-01-04 AT 10:51 PM (CDT)
 
I mount the hinges ~3 inches apart, two per side on small stabs and three per side on larger ones.

Applying full up elevator may have made your accident worse by putting the plane in a stall. A plane of any kind, without power, will not go up just because the elevator is up. First rule in learning to fly: elevator controls speed, throttle controls altitude. Less elevator might have bought you more lift and a save.

The airplane was pointed straight up when the engine quit. The airplane lost speed then slid backwards. I gave it up to flip the tail around. Now the airplane is pointed straight down. I did not have enough ground clearence to turn and land.

>How close together should plastic hingers be? I have been
>putting them about 6" apart. (snip)
>Gary Weaver [email protected]

Gary, one thing you didn't mention was the brand and type of hinges. If the hinges are strong enough, you space them far enough apart that the parts don't flex. You don't want the elevator to flex at all under pressure, so that will determine your spacing. However... (There is always one of these).

We had used a different barrel hinge at one time--I can't even remember the brand. They were nice and thin and easy to mount with no binding. But Matt lost three of these on different occasions on the flap. Since then we have switched to DuBro hinges exclusively, and, using the same spacing, have never had another hinge failure.

Now, there are other good brands, but I know these work. And with strong enough hinges, you will only need to space them close enough together so as to prevent control surface flexing. This not only messes up your pattern, but it will kill your hinges. If in doubt, add an extra hinge, and always put two together at the tip of the flap.