John,
I guess I should re-phrase the question.
I didn't mean that I was worried how planes *are* currently being assembled.
I was thinking more the design stage / experimental (i.e. models).
A perfectly symetrical plane is of course ?? desireable.
" Also some parameters are much more important than others - for example if one wing is bolted on at an angle of incidence that is say 2 deg different from the other wing then you might find the ailerons could not cope with the subsequent variation in lift between the wings. "
That point was made on another forum I asked this on (rcgroups.com). The precision of the wing shape was mentioned as being far more important than say the length of the fuselage.
I *am* curious as the effects of the specific examples I invented.
E.g. With a "shorter" wing on one side, is the added weight of the longer wing going to be more of an effect, or will the added lift of the larger wing-half have more influence?
Will a reduced chord on one side have the same effect as a shorter wing-half ?
I have Flightwise by C. Carpenter, and Aircraft Design by Raymer, but both those books seem to assume you are building a "sensible" plane
Mike