Back when I first started flying my KR, I was in the process of going from gaffer's tape gap seals to some that I made up from fiberglass layups. But between the two, I decided I needed to fly a little, so I flew one day without any kind of gaps seals at all between stub wings and outer wings. A nasty surprise awaited on takeoff...I was worried that I'd take out the trees at the end of the runway! I was shocked at how much the climb rate was affected by the absense of gap seals. I had a 1.5" gap in there, and it made a huge difference.
A recent Barnaby Wainfan article in Kitplanes magazine explained the physics behind that phenomenon, and a 1/2" gap can kill off something like 40% of your lift. The gist of it is that you basically have three wingtips on each side now, along with the associated lift penalty. I mention this to keep you from making the same mistake I made...and now you know why I reduced my wing gap down to 1/16" recently, and it's currently covered with gaffer's tape... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
