Wing Tip design old verses new

I'm building an rv7a and have the older wing tips with curved trailing edge. Is the any major benefit to buy the new style to replace them. Looks like total cost of the new tips is around $500.

Ellis

Bat Tips

The real difference is the lighting recess is much larger on the new tips to accommodate taxi lights if your not a fan of cutting holes in your leading edges. Early fiberglass from Vans on occasion may require some light refinishing as oppose to the new gray parts.IMHO its not worth $500 plus shipping to change these out.As far as I know no one has done a serious study to modify these tips to improve stall (lift at the bottom of the flight envelope),Nor have I looked into it myself. I've seen tip tanks,Antenna,strobe box's,storage lockers built into them over the years but no major aerodynamic changes,anyone correct me if I'm wrong please?
RHill

Ask your Buddies about the bruising of the thighs when walking around the plane and hitting the rear point of the tip??? :--)
There is a rumor out there that after Van caught his leg on the pointy tip one day and said square these things off and they are now square. Thanks Van! No performance difference that I know of and Not sure I would spend the 500 dollars either.

I am competing for the least important response on VAF today. FWIW

Larry

I have the bat wing w-715-0 tips as well. VAF member, Charlie Hamme, kindly allowed me to use his later tips(-1) and make molds of the light notch. I, therefore, upgraded my light notch to allow larger landing lights.

The -0 tips are thicker than the -1 tips.

Want to upgrade?

One of the best-looking RV-4's i've seen had the bat-wing tips retro-fitted to it. Looks really slick. If you want to change to the "new" tips, i'm sure you can find a buyer for the old ones here on VAF.

Plan B

Hey Ellis,

I had a set of those that came with the RV8A partially built kit I bought. I didn't like the 'old' shape, so I modified them to suit. It was pretty easy to do. I shorted and straightened the wingtips by trimming the inboard edge, angled to make the tip equal width front to back (actually, I also cut quite a bit off front to back to shorten the tips overall, 9 inches per side). Then I trimmed the trailing edge to match the wing. Then I clamped the trailing edge and epoxied it shut (taped it closed and poured epoxy in with the tip standing up. I had to do a little filling on the front to get the angle to match the front of the wing. It sounds like a lot, but really only took a couple of hours. Doing this had two positive effects, first the tips lost quite a bit of weight, and it had a great roll rate.

Lance

wing tips

Bone head composites makes a carbon cap that also gives you the clip wing advantage.I'm more inclined to think in the other direction like extending the tips with Horner drop tips, I've seen them on Zenith ships with good results in low speed handling.