Control surface balancing

bikerwhiz

My 1979 TR182 is at the paint shop. The control surfaces have been removed and everything is being stripped to bare metal. There is no corrosion and the aluminum is pristine. How critical is having the control surfaces rebalanced?

Scott Sherer

Stand by while i send this to our a&p.

Scott Sherer

Here's a response from our A&P, Erich Rempert:

They will very likely not need to be rebalanced as they will end up weighing about the same.

However they do need to be checked to verify proper balance. They could have been out of spec to begin with...

Checking them is very easy and non invasive. There's no way I would paint an airplane and reassemble the controls without checking balance if I'm signing off the work.

Now is the time to pull out the knives and make sure they're ok. Cessna controls have a pretty large range, but some GA aircraft have very critical balance requirements (the V-tail Bonanza is a great example- even paint touch up or adding stripes requires a re-check).

If the airplane is at a paint shop, you have paid for the controls to be balanced, no reason to talk them out of doing things right~

~Erich Rempert, IA Consultant

bikerwhiz

Erich, they are going to be balanced. I was only curious since it looked like an equal amount of paint going back on. She flew great before so I think it was set up nicely. I am hoping for a know or two more speed with the slick new surfaces. Thanks so much for your response. It is always comforting to hear it from the pro!

Scott Sherer

Roger that! As always, be very careful on your first flight after maintenance.

bikerwhiz

Will do