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Operation on Turf with Wheelpants

Flygirl34d

I'm New Here
We just bought an RV-9 from the original builder who has operated the airplane from paved runways only. I know Van designed the RV line to operate from grass but this builder is quite concerned about that with Wheel Pants installed. His are nicely faired in and set 1-1/2” off the ground. We live on an airpark in East Texas (T25) with a nice grass runway. This is not an “unimproved” or pasture strip but nicely maintained grass. In the heat of summer when the grass is stressed it does get a bit rough whereas in the spring and early winter its noticeably “softer” but never muddy.

What recommendations do you have for turf ops? Should we remove the Wheel Pants? Can they be reinforced and or raised to give more clearance? If we remove them how do we secure the gear leg fairing since there’s no place to attach the lower intersection fairings?

Any advice would be most appreciated.
 
My personal recommendation is to give it a try, based on your description of the grass. As you note, if you remove them you need to figure out how to support the gear leg fairings, or remove them too. Then, you’ll be disappointed at cruise speed-Vans’ fairings actually work!
 
grass and wheel pants

I fly an RV-9A from our turf runway. Bermuda grass and other green stuff. Sounds like ours is not nearly as plush as yours. 2800 feet, 100 feet wide. We keep it mowed. Wheel pants are fine mechanically, but the grass will work on the paint. I recommend running it and if and when the grass works on the paint on the bottom side, mask and paint the bottom of the wheel pant with black. If you remove them it will rob you of MANY MPH and the bare wheels will look much worse than if the paint is not quite as shiny on the pants.
Ed
 
Mike Seager who is a well known and experienced transition trainer for all of the Van's aircraft runs his operation out of the Vernonia airport, which is a grass runway. He operates all of the RV line there, including the RV-10 and RV-6, and I would guess he has landed the RV-9 there as well. In all cases he doesn't remove the wheel pants.

Suggest you get in touch with Mike if you wish to discuss grass strip operations with the RV-9. His information is available on Van's website at https://www.vansaircraft.com/rv-flight-training/

Congratulations on joining the ranks of RV owners.
 
Wheel pants

Wheel pants will help keep the rocks and sticks from hitting under your wings. Over time, the fiberglass will work on the attaching hardware holes and then it would be a great time to remove the wheel pants and fiberglass in some reinforcements on the inside and redrill the holes. In the meantime, put that on the conditional inspection checklist and fly your RV with pants on. Checking the tire pressure, well, that’s another story....
 
I don't feel that the 9 is any different than any other plane as to regards to pants on when landing on grass.
My plane lives on a pretty screwed up grass runway. Muddy in winter with a few dips, uphill RW 15 most of the way. Oh ya it's downhill the other way.
I'm flyin an RV-6A and go for it. Yes I get mud under the wings in the winter, But, Hey, I'm flyin not showing my plane. White planes don't look so good with all that mud, But it still fly's.
Just takes more gas to keep it moving.
My three cents worth Art
 
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Just now, spending a few days repairing and painting my pants after landing on rougher strips last Fall before I saw the light and took them off; could do without the hassle of this work. In the future, I’ll be taking them off for the strips I go into, or keep them on and only land and the hard.
 
Rubber bottoms. Mold in place then cut away the glass underneath, bond into place. The edges are tight to the tire sidewall.

I operate these with 3/4" ground clearance, everywhere. In rough places I'm more concerned with tire's rolling diameter than the wheelpants.
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Rubber bottoms. Mold in place then cut away the glass underneath, bond into place. The edges are tight to the tire sidewall.

I operate these with 3/4" ground clearance, everywhere. In rough places I'm more concerned with tire's rolling diameter than the wheelpants.
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Dan,
That's freaking brilliant, I must have repaired and repainted my wheelpants 4 times in the past 1900 hours (including landing on a dirt road at Sulphur Creek Ranch in Idaho).
I guess your using a similar technique to your plenum seals?

Nice.

Laird
 
I guess your using a similar technique to your plenum seals?

Yep, same thing, room temperature urethane rubber rolled into 9oz plain weave between 4 mil plastic sheets. The trimmed galoshes glue on with a urethane adhesive. There's an old thread somewhere around here.

I've slapped patches on worn spots over the years, torn them back off when they too wore through, and slapped on new ones. Last annual I didn't have any urethane handy, so I rolled Ultra Black into the glass, which had the advantage of making the wear patch self adhesive. Through it all the pants themselves have been unsullied, except for when I crunched one on a high hangar track, rolling backwards. Those tails are still glass.
 
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Good ideas with the rubber etc. and I'm not saying not to do it but at the end of the day with 1.5" clearance it should be fine. I'm not sure exactly how much I have on my -6 with old style wheel pants but I think it's about that. My landings include many on grass, gravel, dirt, alkalai flats, beach sand -- oh and the occasional asphalt runway :). After thousands of such landings the bottoms are fairly scraped up but I only see that when I take them off for maintenance. Go use the plane and have fun!
 
My 9A lives on 3000’ grass strip. 700 hours with at least one landing from every flight on the grass. Unlike DanH, I have no special construction with the wheel pants. They look as good now as when they were new.
 
The rubber galoshes are not needed for grass ops. They just allow grass ops with pants mounted low to cover the max amount of tire, while sealing the perimeter of the opening. In other words, drag reduction, and for all I know they don't buy much more than a milliknot.

However, if I moved to a semi-rough or soft place, I'd do like Marvin McGraw and install 6.00's and larger pants. They look great on the airplane, and do not seem to slow him down much, if any.

https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/001423968.html
 
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Hey Dan,
Gotta ask. What do you do for chalks when visiting a ramp? I carry a small set of chalks as most FBO's don't have anything small enough.
However I bet I have 1" - 1-1/4" clearance.
Doesn't seem like a 1/2" chalk would work very well.
 
+1 for 380x150 tires

380X150 tires may be an option. You will however need to enlarge the wheel opening.

+1 for these larger tires that fit the standard 5” rims and use the same tubes as the 5.00x5 tires. Had to widen the wheel pants slightly, maybe lost a 1/2 knot. The wider tires do great on turf, especially when it’s a bit soft. YMMV.
 
What I do

I painted the bottom of my wheel pants with a teflon infused urethane paint that is very tough and takes the abuse of gravel and dirt on turf strips very well. It only needs to cover the very bottom, and cant even be seen while on the ground. For chocks , I have some very light weight aluminum angles that are about 1" in height with a string lanyard. I have 3 sets so I can also do the tailwheel, and they all stack together nice and take up very little space. You will also see some folks make PVC ones from 1" pipe and a couple 90 degree fittings to make a "U" that slips in from the side..also cheap,light, and easy. I don't ever let a "line boy" try to help with big rubber chocks when at an event or transient FBO..they will do it in a heart beat more often than not.
 
The rubber galoshes are not needed for grass ops. They just allow grass ops with pants mounted low to cover the max amount of tire, while sealing the perimeter of the opening. In other words, drag reduction, and for all I know they don't buy much more than a milliknot.

However, if I moved to a semi-rough or soft place, I'd do like Marvin McGraw and install 6.00's and larger pants. They look great on the airplane, and do not seem to slow him down much, if any.

https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/001423968.html

Drag reduction is the goal I’m guessing, and it may be more than a milliknot. An old friend from college on this website sent me information years ago about drag reduction on the Radial Rocket (some of you may remember that airplane). It had fiberglass wheel pants like our RV’s, although with larger tires I think. He installed a NACA vent - BACKWARDS - in the tail/pressure recovery portion of the wheel pant, so it essentially “sucked” the air out, eliminating turbulence around the opening between the pant and the tire. He claimed it made a 5 knot difference in true airspeed. I’ve never validated that, but I’ve often thought I would give it a try on my RV4 - after all, it’s just fiberglass and can be changed back. I don’t have the bulkhead inside my pressure recovery wheel pants, but if I did I would have to create a duct from the bulkhead back to the NACA vent. I think that’s what he did.
I think I just talked myself into doing some experimenting........
 
My 9A lives on 3000’ grass strip. 700 hours with at least one landing from every flight on the grass. Unlike DanH, I have no special construction with the wheel pants. They look as good now as when they were new.
Ditto my 6A - 2700' grass home strip, so many landings and takeoffs from that strip in the past 2.5 years with standard wheel pants. I did wind up with a cracked bracket on the nose wheel pant that was the old 6A bracket, but have replaced it with the newer version that should not have the same issues.
 
From Dan Hortons post:


https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/001423968.html

And what a beautiful airplane that is. I camped next to him and his wife at OSH-2018. He not only has larger main wheels, his tailwheel is a more robust unit than comes with the kit. He operates off a private grass runway and wanted some extra assurance that his undercarriage would hold up. I think he accomplished his goal.
 
From Dan Hortons post:


https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/001423968.html

And what a beautiful airplane that is. I camped next to him and his wife at OSH-2018. He not only has larger main wheels, his tailwheel is a more robust unit than comes with the kit. He operates off a private grass runway and wanted some extra assurance that his undercarriage would hold up. I think he accomplished his goal.

This is Marvin & Sandy that operate off their own grass strip (5tn4). He designed it with larger tires for the back country of Idaho, which he, myself, and a few others from our EAA chapter, are heading to in June. They both did an excellent job on building this RV14. He has over 500 hours on it already. george
 
5mph

5 mph is huge. The late Bob Axiom would have loved to known this.
Please keep us posted as this sounds like a fun project.

Drag reduction is the goal I’m guessing, and it may be more than a milliknot. An old friend from college on this website sent me information years ago about drag reduction on the Radial Rocket (some of you may remember that airplane). It had fiberglass wheel pants like our RV’s, although with larger tires I think. He installed a NACA vent - BACKWARDS - in the tail/pressure recovery portion of the wheel pant, so it essentially “sucked” the air out, eliminating turbulence around the opening between the pant and the tire. He claimed it made a 5 knot difference in true airspeed. I’ve never validated that, but I’ve often thought I would give it a try on my RV4 - after all, it’s just fiberglass and can be changed back. I don’t have the bulkhead inside my pressure recovery wheel pants, but if I did I would have to create a duct from the bulkhead back to the NACA vent. I think that’s what he did.
I think I just talked myself into doing some experimenting........
 
We just bought an RV-9 from the original builder who has operated the airplane from paved runways only. I know Van designed the RV line to operate from grass but this builder is quite concerned about that with Wheel Pants installed. His are nicely faired in and set 1-1/2” off the ground. We live on an airpark in East Texas (T25) with a nice grass runway. This is not an “unimproved” or pasture strip but nicely maintained grass. In the heat of summer when the grass is stressed it does get a bit rough whereas in the spring and early winter its noticeably “softer” but never muddy.

What recommendations do you have for turf ops? Should we remove the Wheel Pants? Can they be reinforced and or raised to give more clearance? If we remove them how do we secure the gear leg fairing since there’s no place to attach the lower intersection fairings?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

You live about 10 minutes way from my grass runway TA37 ( link is in the signature below). Come on over and visit when you get a chance. If you can land in T25 you'll land easily here. It's North-South without any trees on the approaches, plus it's all flat and never soggy, even with the almost 3" of rain that fell yesterday.

I had my wheel-pants installed all the time on my RV8 and never had any issues with the grass. I also later installed the bigger tires but never noticed any difference (at least on my runway) so I removed them but gave them to the person who bought my RV8 a few months ago in case he wanted to try them. Now I own a Cardinal with wheel-pants and they're not coming off either.
 
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