The importance of clean pants...

[judoka5051]

So I flew my fianc? to Chalet Suzanne today (closing permanently soon BTW). Tall wet grass and a fairly short field. Anyway, after lunch we departed and flew home. On the way I noticed that for some reason the plane was about 10mph slower than usual at the same RPM. When I got out at the hanger I immediately noticed the problem. Giant wads of grass hanging out out the wheel pants aft of the tires. Now, I can imagine that would cause some drag, but 10mph, wow! The moral of the story,,, watch out for those evil grass strips.

Lance

[Neal@F14]

Our pressure recovery wheelpants need the airflow around them to to be properly and smoothly directed around the pointed tail end in order to do their magic. Anything that disrupts the airflow and causes turbulence around and behind the wheel pants generates more drag than just the tufts of grass hanging down in the slipstream alone.