It?s great having a wife who owns her own RV - I am never at a loss for gift ideas, as long as I have a Van?s catalog! 
(Guys, be very, very, very careful with this ?advice??.)
One of Louise?s goals since she bought her RV-6 was to update the landing gear fairings and wheel pants - the original, two-piece aluminum gear leg fairings were badly cracked, and the (also) original wheel pants were known to be draggy and also showing their age. I figured a complete make-over would not only relieve us of some maintenance headaches and improve performance, but provide a good fabrication and assembly learning experience as well. So for Christmas, she opened a big box full of raw fiberglass parts and a card promising my undivided assistance and instruction. We went with stock Van?s pressure recovery pants, gear leg fairings, and lower intersection fairings. Having had good luck with the Upper fairings from Fairings Etc, I bought a pair of these to make the process quicker.
Building out the fairings is a topic for another post, but I wanted to post some speed results while they were still fresh in my mind - it should give folks a relative idea of what you can get with no fairings, old fairings, and a complete new set. The data collection process was simple - we took several long cross-country?s during the upgrade process, and I simply took a ?Mind-Weighted-Average? of the True Airspeed shown on the Dynon. (That means that after we set up our normal, steady-state cruise, I looked at the numbers periodically for awhile, and picked what looked to be the average.) Since we were generally cruising about 8,000? with the throttle wide open and leaned out, the numbers can be compared directly. Fuel was generally about in the middle, and baggage loading was the same. I?d say the numbers are probably good plus or minus two knots - take them for what they?re worth.
With the ?Original fairings? (remember, Mikey is kit number 4), we were seeing about 164 knots True on a trip to and from Minneapolis in April. The number is pretty accurate - there isn?t much to do along that route but watch data!
Flying to the Pecan Plantation Fly-in with NO fairings of any kind (we were picking them up from the paint shop that day), we were seeing about 147 knots. Oh wait - the gear legs did have the wooden stiffeners installed, so we weren?t presenting round legs top the airstream - my old aero knowledge says that is probably good for a few knots!
Flying home from Pecan, with Mikey?s new shoes, all spiffy?ed up, we saw a good 168 knots TAS - in my book, that?s pretty good for a -6 with a 180 Horse Carbed motor that has 1600 hours on it!
So, in summary:
No fairings - 147 KTAS
Old fairings - 164 KTAS
New Fairings - 168 KTAS
Yes - fairings make a difference - a HUGE difference!
Paul
(Guys, be very, very, very careful with this ?advice??.) One of Louise?s goals since she bought her RV-6 was to update the landing gear fairings and wheel pants - the original, two-piece aluminum gear leg fairings were badly cracked, and the (also) original wheel pants were known to be draggy and also showing their age. I figured a complete make-over would not only relieve us of some maintenance headaches and improve performance, but provide a good fabrication and assembly learning experience as well. So for Christmas, she opened a big box full of raw fiberglass parts and a card promising my undivided assistance and instruction. We went with stock Van?s pressure recovery pants, gear leg fairings, and lower intersection fairings. Having had good luck with the Upper fairings from Fairings Etc, I bought a pair of these to make the process quicker.
Building out the fairings is a topic for another post, but I wanted to post some speed results while they were still fresh in my mind - it should give folks a relative idea of what you can get with no fairings, old fairings, and a complete new set. The data collection process was simple - we took several long cross-country?s during the upgrade process, and I simply took a ?Mind-Weighted-Average? of the True Airspeed shown on the Dynon. (That means that after we set up our normal, steady-state cruise, I looked at the numbers periodically for awhile, and picked what looked to be the average.) Since we were generally cruising about 8,000? with the throttle wide open and leaned out, the numbers can be compared directly. Fuel was generally about in the middle, and baggage loading was the same. I?d say the numbers are probably good plus or minus two knots - take them for what they?re worth.
With the ?Original fairings? (remember, Mikey is kit number 4), we were seeing about 164 knots True on a trip to and from Minneapolis in April. The number is pretty accurate - there isn?t much to do along that route but watch data!
Flying to the Pecan Plantation Fly-in with NO fairings of any kind (we were picking them up from the paint shop that day), we were seeing about 147 knots. Oh wait - the gear legs did have the wooden stiffeners installed, so we weren?t presenting round legs top the airstream - my old aero knowledge says that is probably good for a few knots!
Flying home from Pecan, with Mikey?s new shoes, all spiffy?ed up, we saw a good 168 knots TAS - in my book, that?s pretty good for a -6 with a 180 Horse Carbed motor that has 1600 hours on it!
So, in summary:
No fairings - 147 KTAS
Old fairings - 164 KTAS
New Fairings - 168 KTAS
Yes - fairings make a difference - a HUGE difference!
Paul
