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Originally Posted by brewtoo
I attended a seminar by Roy LoPresti. He was a major factor in the redesign (for speed and efficiency) of the mooney aircraft (J model) and has been involved in numerous speed mods for different.
He stated that their research had shown that the advantage of a clean airplane over a dirty one was negligible. Same with bugs on the leading edges. Yes, it surprised me, too.
In my personal experience, I have never been able to notice any difference in fuel consumption (or performance) whether the plane was dirty or clean.
YMMV, of course.  |
Hmmm I wonder if he would say the same thing for little pellets of ice on the leading edges of wings..... It really sucks flying around with the stall horns screaming at you everytime you try to climb more than 50FPM...
I agree the effects are negligable on a private plane like a Mooney or even a car but I wonder how it would affect things if that Mooney could do 500KTS. Oh wait the wings would be ripped off at 500KTS. Air while it does not seem like much is quite a force. Air resistance is an actual force that vehicles deal with.
On cars its the reason why so many of them are wind tunnel tested and its why we don't drive square cars. Ok whell I do drive a square car but thats beside the point... 