Steve,

I have been talking to Harry Hinkley, ,who has an SX 300 that is about 20 knots faster than the other SX 300s here at Spruce Creek (7FL6) – all due to aerodynamic improvements.

First of all, he emphasized that you really have to test what you do.  Some things that look like they should be significant aren’t and some that don’t look like much turn out to be significant.  We came up with a list that Harry thought was the “low hanging fruit” – and I am going to try those first.

We decided to put gap seals on both the upper and lower parts of the flaps.  If these work, there should be no need for the compressible foam tape.  The foam tape would stop high pressure air from the below the wing/flaps from “leaking” through the gap to the low pressure upper surface.  But they will not smooth the flow along the top and bottom interfaces between the wings and flaps.  The top and bottom gap seals will do both.

I am also going to gap seal the rudder and elevator and put some RTV “fairings” around my antennas.  We are going to leave the ailerons alone.

I do have some rudimentary fairings on my flap hinges, but I suspect there is a lot more that can be done with those four big “air flow disturbers” hanging below our wings.  Clark Baker designed some flap hinge fairings and he has a VERY fast Legacy.

Didn’t manage to finish all the work today so I will (hopefully) finish tomorrow morning and fly in the afternoon. I’ll keep you posted.

D. Brunner

OK Doug, here’s another 4 for you.  Put Home Depot Compressible Foam Tape in the wing trailing edge flap pocket.  I have been planning to do this but just haven’t got around to it.  Put in 8 more “tricks” and you are up 40 KNOTS!  Don’t laugh you guys, Lee Behel did it at Reno.

Steve Colwell