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1. 06:38 AM - Re: Gap Seal Experiment Final Day (hopefully) (Brian Whittingham)
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| Subject: | Re: Gap Seal Experiment Final Day (hopefully) |
Jim,
This is for my thesis and the reason why I used two layers of tape is
just to make sure that it wouldn't come off in flight. I don't think it
would be a big deal if it did, other than I'd have to reattach and for my
thesis stuff I'd have to redo some numbers. All stayed on well though. As
to why I put the gap seals on top AND bottom, well I looked at where the
biggest gaps were in the plane and covered them. The flaps were easy, the
bottom of the elevator was too. The ailerons have a gap as well, but the
bottom is bigger than the top. The idea is to keep the airflow from the
bottom from reaching the top of the wing. That will increase lift, and
effectiveness. If I had it to do over though I would put an S-shaped piece
of tape to really tightly seal the ailerons off from air going through the
gap. We did learn a few lessons with the whole thing about how we would do
it different. I think that we'll see an increase in lift for sure. I
believe we saw 1-2 knot increase in stall speed. (I think the numbers were
43 kts before 45 after) Not a big deal, but it was one of the things I
hypothesized would happen. Haven't had a chance to play with the numbers
yet. I traveled to Arkansas last night and will stay another night here to
visit with family and head on to Texas. One really interesting thing that
we found was that we had a little right roll in the plane before the mod.
Just never got around to fixing that yet. When we put on the gap seals it
was much more noticible in the stick force to hold the plane in level
flight. The plane wanted to roll to the right more. To me that's a quick
and easy determination of a couple of things. We got increased aileron
authority, and an increase in overall lift. I'll let you all know the final
results though. Brian W.
Brian:
What youa re doing is pretty exciting and thanks for the efforts.
Can you tell me why the tape is applied to the top and bottom of the aileron
gaps? I am curious why not just the bottom?
Jim!
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