I have installed gap seals on my KR-2 a couple of years ago and have seen no
noticeabled difference in performance. I am considering taking them off. The
gap seals cause more mechanical friction on the aileron rigging and that I
don't need. Also the wing is easier to handle when off the plane without the
seals. Follow the plans when building.
-Joe
Message: 6
List-Post: krnet@list.krnet.org
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 22:16:10 -0500
From: "Mark Langford" <n5...@hiwaay.net>
Subject: KR> flying
To: "KRnet" <kr...@mylist.net>
Message-ID: <001c01c670bb$6cc93a00$2802a8c0@2600xp>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
NetHeads,
I've been doing a little bit of flying myself. Considering we were
surrounded by thunderstorms, yesterday was a pretty smooth flying day. I
got in about 3 hours, first doing climbs, glides, and stalls, then adding
gap seals and repeating the process. Bottom line is that I could tell no
appreciable difference in climb rate (and I have some pretty accurate data,
gathered while maintaining 95mph in each climb, plus or minus a mph or two
either way). Stall speed might have dropped a mph or two. Top speed
appears to have improved slightly. I'll have to dig up the E6B to find out
exactly how much, but it's not much. I attribute this to the care I
exercised fairing the ailerons and split flaps into the wing (details near
the bottom of http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/owings.html ). Building
ailerons per the plans yields a big fat gap at the bottom and that begs for
gap seals. One odd thing is that the stalls are now preceeded by some
noticeable buffeting, which is new, and I'd swear it climbs with less
fuselage angle and lands easier (I greased about 5 in a row at FYM), but
these are probably my imagination.
I'm up to 519 KR "landings" (and still only on the second set of tires!) and
210.9 hours of KR time (sorry, Larry). Maybe I'll get some more in
tomorrow, as I plan to buzz up to MRC to visit Troy Petteway, a 20 minute
flight...
