William,
1" of the 2.25"s is used up on the wing, by the attachment tape. The
other 1.25"s spans the gap and spills out onto the flap. I'm going to
trim the strip, until it affects the flight characteristics and see what
happens. I'll report my findings.
Jeff
William Mills wrote:
> <william@wrmills.plus.com>
>
> Jeff,
> Why does the tape need to be so wide, or does it just come in 2 1/4"
> widths? If you get a chance, perhaps you could publish a photo.
> Best wishes,
> William
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rman" <topglock@cox.net>
> To: <europa-list@matronics.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 3:51 PM
> Subject: Europa-List: Thank you, John Lawton.
>
>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 269.6.4/790 - Release Date: 05/05/2007 10:34
>>
>>
>
>
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