Last year, I had the pleasure of flying into John's airstrip, in
Tennessee and visiting with him and his near finished bird, for a
while. In our conversation, John mentioned how sealing up the aircraft
would clean up the lines, resulting in better speeds. As John said, the
glider guys do it and it works. Well, while I had Baby Blue
disassembled and was cleaning her up for Sun-N-Fun (which she did not
make, as she was still ailing from the weak carb spring incident) I
decided to add some gap seals to the wing, to seal the flaps, upon
retraction. What I used was a 2.25" wide piece of .020" styrene, a
product that I use, almost daily in my sign/graphics business. I
attached it to the wing using 1" hem tape (a very strong, two sided
tape, used to hem banners). Once the engine was restored to normal
operating condition, the results were immediate and astounding. I
haven't done a complete test, yet, but the results seems to have yielded
about 4-5 kph at cruise. It has also resulted in more float, during
landing, which I attribute to reduced stall speeds. I say reduced stall
speeds, because, by reducing my final approach from 65 kph to 60 kph,
across the numbers, Baby Blue lands like she used to. I'll be doing
more extensive tests, as the weather settles. However, I am extremely
pleased with the initial results of the simple and inexpensive mod.
Thanks again, John for your suggestion...
Jeff - Baby Blue
284 hours
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