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Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 7:56 am
by Joe Moilanen
You can't argue with success. I'm definetely interested in these. Hope to see you in Idaho Kelly, Should be arriving about dark on Thusday night the 1st and working my way home Sunday.
Joe
4518C
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:38 pm
by 3480C
Kelly
I would be interested,I need all the help I can get.I have the same prop and picth as you.
John
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:35 pm
by Dave Clark
I've never done it with flaps but on R/C airplanes it's common to seal the hinge gap on control surfaces. It drastically increases control authority and can eliminate flutter.
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:17 pm
by Bruce Fenstermacher
Dave you are 100% correct about the RC models and some full scale aircraft like Bellanca Super Vikings.
I personally can see how sealing the flap in this manner can work. By sealing the flap the air can't pass ove which is what you would want in a typical Fowler flap but remember the flap also extends back as it drops.
Sealed the flaps are effectively increasing the wing area and increasing the mean cord of the center of the wing. In this case being seal may work as good or better than the unsealed Fowler flap.
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:02 pm
by JTS
Kelly, I'd be interested to know if you've seen any increase in cruise speed using your new seals. Thanks
Jody
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:15 pm
by funseventy
Eric,
My in-laws have a 135 hp cessna 140 with the same flaps as you. They heard what I was going to do about 6 months ago and they went out and put their flaps down and laid a strip of duct tape on the top of the hinge line where it wouldn't be noticable. I had heard of this before. Anyway, they saw a good bit of improvement with that $1.97 STOL kit. I believe you have to be current at using your airplane at the super slow end to really notice the gain on a ragwing.
The Kit is STC'd for the 170B but only with the cuff and fence. I am field approving the gap seal by itself and that process is going well. I would like to get the STC for just the gap seal so people could put them on their airplanes no matter what kit you already have on the airplane.
Kelly
Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 3:35 am
by zero.one.victor
Kelly,your father-in-law wouldn't be Jerry Highland,would it? He wrote a good article about his "Mountain 140" that was in the 140 Club newsletter a few years ago. At the time,I was thinking about getting something similar & after reading his article I ended up having a long telephone conversation with him about 140's. Seemed like a real nice guy. I ended up staying with the trusty 170 but still like the idea of a hot-rod 140.
As I recall he had (BLR/cub-crafter) VG's on his 140,that'd be good for the added aileron control at the lower stall speed. Like I said before on another topic,I had the duct-tape flap-gap seals on my ragwing for a while,but my ailerons are not effective enough at low speed to where I feel comfortable taking advantage of the lower stall speed. VG's might be a big improvement,but they don't offer them for the ragwing 170. I pulled the duct-tape off recently, that eliminated the excess floating when three-pointing it.
Eric