Fingpilot, you're correct about the aileron travel/adverse yaw(of course), sorry 'bout that.
The crux of this thread - as I read it is that you believe this is a misrigged spoiler, and all the maintenance types believe it's a floating spoiler panel. Furthermore, from your response to my first post, I think you don't believe in the aerodynamics of a floating spoiler panel killing the lift on that wing. I think we all agree that the aileron deflection is the autopilot's response to the spoiler.
I can speak for the maintenance folks when I say that any maintenance crew would see this amount of spoiler misrig, to say nothing of any flightcrew member performing a walk-around! If it was rigged to this position, it would power to this same position as soon as hydraulic power was applied - on the ground as well as in flight...therefore it's just too extreme an error not to be missed, if not by the maintenance crew you don't seem to have much faith in, then certainly by a flight crew member... hell, it'd be easily visible from the jetway!
Let's move on to floating spoiler panels. This is a phenomenon that's somewhat common... well, common enough so that most airline mechanics have dealt with this as a source of an uncommanded roll, or unexplained roll/yaw trim. Since I wouldn't be able to explain the aerodynamics of it to your satisfaction, let me share some examples:
From A.D. 85-01-03;
Part II
Applies to all DC-9 series aircraft, fuselage numbers 1 thru 1125, certificated in all categories, as indicated below:
To provide crews with operation information should spoiler float occur,:
evidenced by abrupt roll, and to provide for a permanent change in the "Emergency Procedures" Section of the FAA approved Airplane Flight Manual (AFM) (and appropriate AFM sections of the operator's manual required by FAR 121.133 and 121.141), accomplish the following
From a paper on new flight recorders:
Flight spoiler extensions
A more serious incident concerns an operator’s report of difficulty retaining control of an aircraft following takeoff, in August 1998.
In this episode the inboard roll spoilers stopped tracking their respective ailerons shortly after takeoff. As the aircraft accelerated and was cleaned up, the inboard roll spoilers extended symmetrically—without being commanded by the pilots. The event lasted for about 12 seconds.
A second un-commanded extension occurred a few moments later, but this event was non-symmetrical. On the first occasion the spoiler extension resulted in the aircraft’s altitude increase by about 100 feet, while the second un-commanded extension resulted in an altitude increase of about 60 feet.
Both altitude excursions were the result of the pilot responding to the lift loss.
The pilots immediately recognized that they had a serious situation on their hands and elected to return to the departure airport. During the flap extension to 15 degrees for landing, the inboard roll spoilers extended, floating up to about eight degrees, over a period of 25 seconds. Following flap extension the spoilers operated appropriately in response to lateral control inputs. The pilots reported decreased aircraft controllability during this sequence of events, and we were
naturally very concerned, and decided to investigate the incident thoroughly—including analyzing data recovered from the aircraft’s flight data recorder.
Here again, the information from the flight data recorder provided a virtual reconstruction of the incident sequence.
First, I should note that at no time during this incident did the aircraft even approach an ‘uncontrollable’ state. Specifically, the lateral and directional control inputs indicated no controllability problems with the aircraft.
This is confirmed by the flight data recorder, which indicates that control deflections were minimal throughout the sequence, and that at no time were the crew attempting to overcome an engaged autopilot, which was initially postulated.
The Dash 8 aircraft has been extensively flight-tested and shown to be fully controllable with one engine inoperative, or with an inoperative hydraulic system—including spoiler float associated with the loss of spoiler hold-down pressure. The flight data recorder provided a more complete picture of the sequence of events, which—for purposes of this discussion—began with the pilots’ pre-flight preparations. As part of their pre-flight checks, the crew had pulled both “Pull Fuel Off” handles on the aircraft’s fire protection panel, which closes the fuel and hydraulic shutoff valves for each engine. The “Emergency Shut Off Valve” for the Number-1 hydraulic system had remained in
the closed position after the crew reset the “Pull Fuel Off” handle at the completion of this check. In turn, following engine start-up, the “Number-1 engine Hydraulic Pump” caution light remained illuminated.
Those were the two examples I found with a quick Google search. When I'm at work tomorrow, I'll see what I can find from Boeing.