Fairings
Scott,
It's pretty amazing the effect of the fairings on these airplanes. I've been changing over to the new fork and have been lazy to put it nicely about finishing. With that said I have been flying with the nosewheel fairing, nose gear leg fairing and the intersection fairings off of the plane for about 3 months or so now and have finally decided to get serious about having it fixed for the summer. With the new wheel fairing on only the plane is a good for another 6 or 7 knots in cruise! The wife and I went on a lunch trip with friends that we fly with often and typically cruise at nearly identical speeds. On this particular trip we took off first and had a 5nm lead on them when they leveled off. 45 minutes later as we were setting up for a midfield entry they were off of our right wing, (as in our 3 o'clock). I couldn't believe that they made up 5 miles on us in 115 miles, or actually less if you take away the distance covered while we were climbing. That takes an advantage of 6 knots to accomplish, maybe 7. This trip gave me the motivation to get back down to the hanger and fix the glass.
When you install your intersection fairings I don't think that you will notice any significant speed advantage, but you will notice a big difference on landing. I remember my airplane not feeing like the factory 9a that I had just gotten transition training in until the intersection were all in place. Then it was more floaty, more responsive and had a generally better low speed feel. I have no way to quantify this or even know for sure that it was real, but it seemed to be the case at the time.
Enjoy your plane and be safe,
Regards,
