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Wax

DanH

Legacy Member
Mentor
Here in the south we have pollen season every spring. Every surface, including inside a hangar, tends to collect a layer of green dust. It's long been my habit, correct or not, to quit cleaning the airplane sometime after the first of the year, then give it a serious cleaning before S&F, or even into May if I'm not going to Florida. I rarely waxed.

A few weekends back I bit the bullet and got to work. First a soapy wash, a good surface scrub with rag, not a brush. Then I got out the big Milwaukee buffer (https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=60631) and worked all the wing sections exhibiting surface buildup...you know, they faintly raspy feel from oxidation and microscopic trash adhered to the paint. Last, I waxed all the upper surfaces and sides of the wings and fuselage, plus the prop, the spinner, tail surfaces, and the landing gear legs and pants.

Tuesday I made a run up to Hensley to wrap up the beta installation of a firewall and tunnel insulation package for the RV-14, the first opportunity to check cruise speed with the fresh cleanup. Typical speed is 183~184 KTAS on a little over 9 gph at 9500. The dirty airplane (both bugs and dust) was down to 181~182. With a fresh polish and wax, it was doing 186~188.

I noticed the effect previously, but never quantified it. Frankly I was surprised...and very pleased. Not a hard core back-to-back test, but in rough numbers, it's like finding 17 additional horsepower.

Expect old 5551 to have a bit more shine in the future.
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Dang, that is a lot more than I would have expected. My hangar gets a lot of dust. I try to keep the plane clean, but you know how that goes. I'll have to try a before/after flight as well one of these days.
 
Interesting

Dan's Speed Wax? I'm with ya on the pollen here in NC, my all white RV-4 turns the dreaded yellow pine pollen color. I have been using the Lucas spray detailer for a few years, as its super easy to spray and wipe with microfiber towels. My hangar neighbor has gone the Ceramic coating route on his Piper Seneca and its is amazingly slick, but the process was tedious and $$.
 
Next time you do a belly wash and clean the underside, would you mind giving us a delta on the speed for dirty vs clean??
 
Claybar

Dan, have you tried using a clay bar to clean the residue? I use them on cars. You can feel when the stuff has been remived. The claybar slides accross like it's oiled.

There's a reason auto racing teams polish the cars. Tiny improvements make a difference.
 
I use the ceramic cleaner/polish, and it's wonderful until I start up.

Not sure what it's like where you live, but during warm (>15c) weather, I'm lucky to be able to see out of the windscreen after takeoff due to the zillions of tiny insects. Obviously my leading edges are pretty-well coated with splats.

When possible, I try to find a light rain shower to fly through, but that's only successful on 5% of my flights.

I need to add some wing wipers and windshield wipers! :D
 
I recently had my RV10 cleaned and then sealed with a ceramic coating. I have to say - forget about speed increases… the ease by which bugs come off the leading edges with just plain water and a microfiber towel is amazing.
 
My favorite maintenance cuz it’s so easy to go from working to flying when your just cleaning/polishing!
 
Not Painted

I use two Cyclo polishers and Nuvite Green - final mirror finish and protectant.
Keeps it shinny and fast.
 
how do you avoid a dry wax ring in the low spots around the flush rivet heads ?

Mine is base and three coats of clear, some of which was sanded off, so the rings seem to be filled. Even where not, it's hard to see a bit of white wax on white pearl.
 
Rejex

I have been using Rejex (sp?) for a couple of years, bought at Oshkosh. Go over the plane in the spring each year, seems to work well and makes bug removal a little easier. never thought about the performance increase :)
Figs
 
Dan, have you tried using a clay bar to clean the residue? I use them on cars. You can feel when the stuff has been remived. The claybar slides accross like it's oiled.

There's a reason auto racing teams polish the cars. Tiny improvements make a difference.

+1 for clay bar. I have used it on my RV several times, unbelievably slick after cleaning with clay bar and an application of Rejex. After the Rejex application I remove bugs etc. with a detailing spray, they come off quite easily. I use Simple Green Aircraft to clean the belly, then clean the same as the rest of the airplane. I don’t wash the airplane with soap and water anymore.

I have never done a before/after speed test, maybe after the next deep cleaning.
 
My plane has enough coats paint that you can’t even see the rivet heads. Even the phillips head screws on the fuel tanks are difficult to make out. It’s a beautiful paint job but it’s also a heavy plane…I might have prioritized differently had I been the builder. It waxes up well though. Rejex twice a year and some generic silicone-based wax whenever I get a little time in the hangar. The bug and tar remover isn’t critical (Mother’s works well) because of the Rejex…they wipe off with a microfiber cloth. The canopy is a focus too….Plexus each flight and polish every so often with a Porter-Cable PC7424 and the Novus system.
 
Here
I waxed all the upper surfaces and sides of the wings and fuselage, plus the prop, the spinner, tail surfaces, and the landing gear legs and pants.
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Now go do the bottoms of the wing and fuselage :D

You owe it to yourself to squeeze those 2 last knots out just laying there waiting for ya ;)
 
I don't, not seriously. Is there a particular variable of interest?

Dan - no particular one, these all have some sort of affect on speed:

temperature (density)
barometric pressure
mixture (you obviously tuned this for max power on your run)
humidity (small player, but could affect you in AL, where it could be a couple % water vapor in the air, but probably not at 9.5k').
 
Dan - no particular one, these all have some sort of affect on speed:

temperature (density)
barometric pressure
mixture (you obviously tuned this for max power on your run)
humidity (small player, but could affect you in AL, where it could be a couple % water vapor in the air, but probably not at 9.5k').

Add weight to the list.

I could see the effect of density yesterday heading west, Alabama to Colorado. Temperatures aloft rose with elevation, and it slowed a little.

No dyno correction chart applied here. The "typical" values are just long term averages.

Mixture was not set for best power, but rather, peak EGT for cruise.

Point here is simply the surprising difference in speed between really filthy and really slick.
 
Dan, nice work. I would expect a couple of knots depending on how dirty it is. After years of crewing a t6 at Reno, where a 1/2 knot can make a big difference, we keep pretty good records of conditions of every lap. We definitely see a few knot increase after a good clean and wax.
 
Speed gains

Dan,

Just curious about speed gains that you’ve seen over the life of your RV-8. I know you’ve done a lot of tweaking over the years and would be interested to know what cruise speeds you started with before any tweaks?

Thanks,

Keith
 
Just curious about speed gains that you’ve seen over the life of your RV-8. I know you’ve done a lot of tweaking over the years and would be interested to know what cruise speeds you started with before any tweaks?

Keith, the speed tweaks were four cowl exit iterations. Everything else has been keyed more toward efficiency....burning less fuel to go the same speed. Once upon a time typical was 183 at 11+.

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The above was by Dan Horton - he was using my computer in Colorado.
Dave
 
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