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Flying pantsless...

maus92

Well Known Member
...but with gear leg fairings installed. Is this a problem? I'm going to be refinishing the pants, and I still want to get some flying in before they can be reinstalled.

Thx.
 
winter SOP

many guys fly sans pants in the winter....
I just noticed my backing plates vibrated during taxi, so wired them to the axle.
Actually didn't help much.

If I recall, Van's recommend always leaving the nose pant on, perhaps to keep the wheel aligned for contact with the runway, but opinions vary on that.
 
Back plates vibrating in the wind

I built a connecting bracket to attach each back plate from the front #8 screw hole to the aft #8 screw hole. They are tied together front to back just in case they set up a vibration resonance.

Steve
 
On my trip to Alaska I left wheel pants at home for almost 100 hours. It surely slowed me down a bit and my fuel burn was more. I think it was worth it. I landed at some unhospitable surfaces and my little wheels survived. Last winter I removed the fairings again and glad I did. I was able to taxi over some icicles :D






 
Watch the G's...

There is fellow RV-8 pilot at my airport that reported his leg fairings would slide down and chafe on his brakelines. He does a lot of acro, though, so that may be why they slid down. I've flown my -8 without pants, but with leg fairings installed with no movement detected...and no acro.
 
Pre-Paint Protection

I was told by Grady at GLO Custom Paint to put a piece of foil tape over the first skin joint on the belly of the plane just past the engine. This joint will get embedded with oil from the engine which will make it hard to get the paint to stick later. I have done it and I am still waiting for my paint?and the tape is still there.

For what it is worth?.
 
I've wanted to fly fairing-less to annual a couple times but always chickened out. Not because I thought it couldn't be done, but because I had never done stalls in that configuration. Does it make a big impact on your stall speeds?
 
Flying sans pants

Did formation training with an RV-8 pilot whose airplane had no gear leg fairings or wheel pants. His nickname became "Nopants". He finally put them on, so we changed it to "Gopants".
 
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