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Wheel Pant Alignment

VF84Sluggo

Well Known Member
I've owned a few taildraggers over the years, including an RV-3. Thinking of getting a -3 again.

Now, each one I owned had the wheel pant longitudinal axis aligned with the planes longitudinal axis. Thus, when on the ground the wheel pants had a 'nose-up' attitude, just like the plane, and a 'level' attitude in cruise flight, just like the plane.

Lately, though, I've seen pics of a couple of RV's with the wheel pant's axis level with the ground when the plane is on the ground, the longitudinal axis NOT aligned with the plane's. Looks odd to me. Plus, in flight it seems like the plane would be flying with its toes pointed down! LOLOL

Yes, I realize that with the pants aligned with the plane, the trailing edge of the pant could contact the ground on a less than perfectly smooth grass strip, and maybe that's why people install them level. Still, it just doesn't look right.

Here's a pic of an RV-3 for sale that has the level/tippy-toe down in-flight wheel pant install. You can see the trim stripe on the pant does not parallel the one on the plane. Looks odd. It's a shame, because this -3 looks very nice, but that wheel pant NONalignment would just get to me after time, I'm sure.

Not sure how hard it would be to re-mount the wheel pants in an "attitude" that matches the fuselage, but I'd have to do it.
 

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Wheel Pants...Form vs Function

I haven’t finished my RV yet but I think it’s that age old design process of deciding “Form vs Function.” Do you want it to look a certain way or do you want it to perform? I don’t think these are always exclusive, by the way.

None other than Dave Anders told me how he aligned both the wheel pants and the gear leg fairings with the air stream on his very fast RV-4 to minimize drag.

There are several different ways to do it, but it seems to me if a builder is going to install wheel pants he/she should make sure they reduce drag as much as possible. If it looks “wrong” on the ground it won’t bother me. And that’s just my opinion.
 
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Might be a good excuse to retro fit some new pressure recovery wheel pants to it. Nearly the same effort it would take to rework the old pants.
 
I wonder if the negative incidence of the wheel fairings in flight might expose less of the tire to the airflow and possibly reduce drag?
 
That's a good question. I wondered that, too, if the toes-down look might actually be less drag at cruise.

Still looks funny, though. And a trim stripe on the pant, IMO, highlights it.
 
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