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Wheel Pants and Drag/Trim

bkervaski

Hellloooooooo!
Testing
I have some pull to the left after I installed my wheel pants (ball not centered, divided on right line).

I read where it could just be the nose wheel being pushed off center by prop wash.

Can I fly without the front wheel pant to see if goes back to tracking true without taking off the mains?

Pretty sure the answer is "Yes" but just wanted feedback to be sure.

Thanks for any advice!
 
first flight with or without wheel pants

Whats your thinking and experience on flying the first flight without wheel pants.

I'm finishing testing and will soon be ready for first flight of my RV-7A and I'm thinking I will leave off all the wheel pants and gear leg fairings.

Right?

And if I leave off the main gear pants, can I leave on the bracket for them?

Thanks
 
Whats your thinking and experience on flying the first flight without wheel pants.

I'm finishing testing and will soon be ready for first flight of my RV-7A and I'm thinking I will leave off all the wheel pants and gear leg fairings.

Right?

And if I leave off the main gear pants, can I leave on the bracket for them?

Thanks

Are you breaking in a new engine? If so, you want as much cooling air as possible to carry away the heat of break-in. The best cooling is at faster speeds, and the amount of cooling is not linear with speeed, it is exponential. The entire gear pant and leg fairing package for a two-place RV is good for about 16 -20 knots at the top end...a significant speed increase and increase in cooling.

There are many that say you should leave everything off because the engine will ?work harder? with the added drag - this makes no sense, as the airplane will accelerate to whatever speed will balance thrust and drag, and stabilize there. You will be running high power regardless of speed (for break-in), so you want as much speed as possible to cool all that horsepower.

Therefore, for my airplanes, I always fly with fairings in place to break in a new engine.

If you are flying an engine that needs no break in, then it probably makes no difference.

Paul
 
Flew most of our 40 hours without a nose fairing with no issues. Near the end, added the fairing and got the same problem you?re experiencing. Thought it was rudder trim related. Long story short, the breakout force on the nose wheel was not close to what it should be. Some flights had the trim way out. Check out the breakout force first.
 
Currently, I am flying with all gear leg fairings and wheel pants off, showing off my spindley (gear) legs. I'm getting ready to add flexible extensions to the hard brake lines to hopefully allow for freer movement of the caliper (plus the OB's bends are a bit "flat.") What I have noticed is I need only a miniscule amount of roll trim (I have no rudder trim capability ATM) in this configuration, whereas before, I could need almost full left trim at certain power settings - so it's pretty clear the fairings and/or pants were not aligned properly when the plane was built. The result is the brake line mod has morphed into readjusting the fairings and pants, and adding the missing intersection fairings while I'm at it. The problem is I don't have the install instructions for the "optional" gear leg fairings - does anyone have them? So far, the mothership has only sent drawings, but I'm looking for a written procedure if one is documented somewhere.
 
Wheel pants and/or gear leg fairing not properly rigged can put the ball way out.

As you say this is as you got the plane the option is to bite the bullet, pull them all off and start over. With everything off do a couple of flights to double check your other rigging is right. I seen planes with trim tabs that were just various attempts to fix basic rigging issues.

The intersection fairing go a long way toward providing anti twist anchors for the 8A leg fairings. While ?200 mph duct tape? will work for testing, get the intersection fairings done.

Carl
 
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