Time to change my pants

[Shine'r]

After 10 years of flying I need to change my wheel pants from the old (I mean OLD) split pants to the newer pressure recovery type. Ok...... who has the best pants for sale? Should I go with Vans, or Sam James, or Rocket, or etc......................... give me your best shot........
Shine'r
RV-6 lyc 160 FP

[Bob Martin]

Originally Posted by Shine'r

After 10 years of flying I need to change my wheel pants from the old (I mean OLD) split pants to the newer pressure recovery type. Ok...... who has the best pants for sale? Should I go with Vans, or Sam James, or Rocket, or etc......................... give me your best shot........
Shine'r
RV-6 lyc 160 FP

Shine'r,
I did 2 RV-6's a year or so ago and got the Pants and Leg fairings from Vans and the upper fairings from Bob's Fairings and the I liked the lowers from Aero Industries...
Rocket doesn't sell the upper or lower fairings for the RV series and their legs fairings are larger and I couldn't find a vendor that sold premade fairings for the Rocket leg fairings to fit an RV. All the aftermarket fairing makers are molded on the smaller Vans leg fairings.
That said, Vans sells all the parts now at a fair price and all fit each other! I vote for Vans all the way. Vans has a nice kit with instructions too.
Good Luck,
Bob Martin
Louisa Virginia
RV-6

[Mel]

I changed my early '90s vintage wheel pants to the new "Dolly Partin" model about 2 years ago. I used Van's pants with Rocket gearleg and intersection fairings. Rocket does, or at least they did then, make intersection fairings to fit Van's pants and the RV series both in taildragger and trike models. I like the Rocket leg fairings because they are wider and make the gear look shorter. As far as speed increase goes, I can't comment, because I changed to the Catto 3-blade prop at the same time.
Mel...DAR

[Bob Martin]

I tried to buy fairings from Rocket for a hangar mate that had Rocket gear fairings already......They told me that didn't make them for the RV but only for the Rockets.......I was stuborn and ordered them anyway thinking I could make them work.......I was wrong, they weren't even close....I had to send then back.........maybe their bottoms would work....but their tops didn't.
Good Luck,
Bob Martin

[Mel]

bob,
Are you talking about the Rocket guys in Austin (Mark Frederick)? We bought the gear leg, upper and lower intersection fairings for both a -6 and a -9A. Maybe they stopped making them.
Mel...DAR

[Bob Martin]

Originally Posted by Mel

bob,
Are you talking about the Rocket guys in Austin (Mark Frederick)? We bought the gear leg, upper and lower intersection fairings for both a -6 and a -9A. Maybe they stopped making them.
Mel...DAR

Mel. YES........it was Mark Frederick.
The upper fairings I bought had a joggle in them for the intersection of the cowl, fuselage and gear.....but didn't fit a RV-6 at all.
They never mentention that they "used" to make them.
All they said was, all they had was the "rocket" fairing.
It might be worth a phone call to ask.......
I'm just passing my experiance along to help somebody else.
If somebody was going to "make" their own fairings it wouldn't matter, but I'd rather fly than make fiberglass parts I can buy, so getting the parts as a complete package is important.
Regards,
Bob Martin
RV-6
Louisa, Virginia