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ACRO E-mail Archive Thread: [Acro] Vortex generators on Akro aircraft

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ACRO E-mail Archive Thread: [Acro] Vortex generators on Akro aircraft


                


Thread: [Acro] Vortex generators on Akro aircraft

Message: [Acro] Vortex generators on Akro aircraft

Follow-Up To: ACRO Email list (for List Members only)

From: Klein Gilhousen <kleing at qualcomm.com>

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 03:16:41 UTC


Message:

  Today I (finally) went to the airport to dust of the Extra and see if I 
could still do a hammer or a spin or whatever or even land the thing.

After landing, there was a Super Decathlon sitting there getting a going 
over by on of the local CFI guys.  Turns out the local guy who owned it had 
just sold it to an out of towner, who had some "improvements" made and the 
CFI had been engaged to go test fly it.  One of the more peculiar things 
was the installation of vortex generators.  The things look like little 
tabs sticking up into the airstream on the top of the wing.  There were 
also some on the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer.  I'm reasonably 
familiar with the concept and had installed, under STC, a set on a Cessna 
421 I used to own.  Basically, they lower the stall speed maybe 10% or 
so.  In the case of the twin, they also lower Vmc a substantial 
amount.  But I've never seen these things on an akro plane.  Methinks 
there's probably a reason.  On the plus side, they will probably lower the 
stall speed a significant amount, resulting in lower landing speeds, less 
runway, etc., etc.  On the minus side, I wonder if the thing will snap any 
more?  I wonder what happens to the spin recovery?  Will it even spin?  On 
the negative side, g that is, there aren't any on the bottom side of the 
wing (or the top of the stab) so inverted performance probably isn't 
affected much.  I wonder what the STC says about akro maneuvers?  Are the 
CFI and the new owner now test pilots?

Klein Gilhousen
Bozeman, MT


                


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