Wednesday, January 31, 2018

What is wrong with the plans-built wheel pants?

I was helping a couple of new Q-200 owners out and we were talking about wheel pants.  Here is a video we took, back in 2003, doing some tuft testing. You can see the separation, causing the yard detatch from the surface. 


Here is a shot from the cockpit.



So the goal is to have the wheel pant shaped so the yarn stays flat and that led me to the wheel pants I have today. I kind of used some RV-7 pants as a model, then took some Sawzall artistic license. I think they added 4 miles an hour, maybe more.

I need to do some comparison tufting with the new pants to show the difference for you folks.













Here is how it came together for me and this is how you can modify your existing wheel mants.

Here is the shape I'm shooting for. Right now, the wheelpant foam is the thickness per plans and the brake and axle mounts have been installed.





Using X-40 two-part foam, glue on lots of pieces to build it up.














Here is a Sawzall video, Part 1. There is a part 2 as well.



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