Pants, Spats, Fairings, for your wheels ... Yea or Nay?

Daleandee

Daleandee

Final Approach
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Mar 4, 2020
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Dale Andee
Last weekend while flying off of a turf strip I broke a wheel covering during takeoff which made for an interesting, yet uneventful landing. I like the look of the plane with them installed but grass strip flying seems to make maintenance of these things a continuing item. I fly mostly from pavement but my YE flights are mostly from a nearby grass field.

I'm considering ditching the wheel pants and taking the hit on speed but I do like the look they give, the bit of extra speed, and keeping the bottom of the wing clean.

I realize that you folks with big money don't have this concern as you tuck your wheels away after launching. Being not so privileged, I'd like to ask for input from the fixed gear folks as to whether you believe the juice is worth the squeeze ...
 
I took mine off after the first year so I wouldn’t be so rough on them. That was 7 years ago.

-I don’t miss the worry about turf.
-I don’t miss wondering about my brake pad status until the annual.
-I don’t miss not being able to glance at my tires during preflight.
-I don’t miss how hard it was to do a pressure check and air up.

I DO miss the additional few knots BUT I recognize it’s all in my head. I almost never have flown more than 5 hours a day and that would have been like 15-20 miles further or 6-7 minutes saved per day.

It’s like an imperfection that only you know about. No big deal to anyone else, and should be no big deal to you, but it is, lol.
 
Daleandee said:
but grass strip flying seems to make maintenance of these things a continuing item.
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From the mx side, my recommendation has always been unless you fly coast to coast every week or enter beauty contests on a regular basis, best route is to remove all the fairings and put them on the shelf until you sell the aircraft.
 
Our 175 had main wheel fairings when I bought it. I had to remove them to add air to the tires, and flew like that to see how much they affected airspeed. I lost two to three miles per hour. They remain on a shelf in the hangar.

It’d be interesting to see if a nosewheel fairing added anything, but I’m not buying one just to find out. If I fall into some bigger bucks, maybe I’d put the full set of Knots2U fairings on, but we’re still talking a fairly slow plane.

On our RV-8A, they were good for eight or nine knots. Those are a much newer design with some science behind them, where the 1960 Cessna wheel pants seem to have been designed just by looks.
 
So interesting comment on design @ateamer

I have heard people say they help or don’t help. I clocked 143 true on, and 137 off. I believe mine are Knots2U? Todd Petersen recommends cutting the openings to a minimum and then airing the fronts to 49psi and mains to 42, to stiffen the sidewall and keeping the clearances tight. 182p
 
Wheel pants have another purpose besides less drag. Like fenders on a bike, they keep spray from your wheels off your wings and tail. They can also keep grunge off your brakes.

I remove mine in dry season for ease of maintenance, and replace in rainy season or for XC trips. It takes me about 10 minutes to install, less to remove. Access is easier with a high wing.

I have operated from a grass strip for the last 5 years. Nobody would ever mistake our runway for a golf course. Tall grass in some spots, bare sand in others. Yet no issues with wheel pants, ever.

Could be a design issue with your pants or bracket. Any chance the fasteners were loose? Where did it fail?
 

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455 Bravo Uniform said:
I have heard people say they help or don’t help.
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Depends. Cessna usually gave a 3 MPH to 10 MPH increase depending on model for their "speed fairing" which they had the data on. However, that data was on a "clean" aircraft at a specific performance configuration. So when antennas and other similar exterior mods get installed on the exterior surfaces or you operate the aircraft outside that "best speed" parameter you usually negate any speed advantage from the fairings.
 
I use a grass strip on a regular basis,not worth the aggravation and maintenance hassle. Flying a. Cessna 150 never really noticed an increase in cruise.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Could be a design issue with your pants or bracket. Any chance the fasteners were loose? Where did it fail?
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I believe two things may have been the cause of the fault. 1) Sonex stock tires are small (11x4.00-5), & 2) I mounted the pants pretty low to help reduce the drag. It appears that the pant failed either by the rear of it striking the ground during a bouncy takeoff over rough terrain and/or the tire flexed enough to catch the tightly fitted pant and caused it to rotate forward. So I'm going to install some larger tires. I also have a set of Vans pressure recovery pants but not sure whether I will install them yet.
 
Daleandee said:
I believe two things may have been the cause of the fault. 1) Sonex stock tires are small (11x4.00-5), & 2) I mounted the pants pretty low to help reduce the drag. It appears that the pant failed either by the rear of it striking the ground during a bouncy takeoff over rough terrain and/or the tire flexed enough to catch the tightly fitted pant and caused it to rotate forward. So I'm going to install some larger tires. I also have a set of Vans pressure recovery pants but not sure whether I will install them yet.
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Makes sense. Your pants do look aggressively low compared to mine, especially when you consider mine are 6x6.00 wheels.
 
Daleandee said:
I believe two things may have been the cause of the fault. 1) Sonex stock tires are small (11x4.00-5), & 2) I mounted the pants pretty low to help reduce the drag. It appears that the pant failed either by the rear of it striking the ground during a bouncy takeoff over rough terrain and/or the tire flexed enough to catch the tightly fitted pant and caused it to rotate forward. So I'm going to install some larger tires. I also have a set of Vans pressure recovery pants but not sure whether I will install them yet.
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James aircraft sells (sold?) smaller frontal area pressure recovery pants that would probably look better than stock Van's fairings on your Sonex. The stock Van's fairings (IMO) would look a bit large on a Sonex.
 
I tried wheel pants once, but they get hung up when the gear retracts.
 
I flew a few rentals with pants. All I remember is really not liking that I couldn't 'properly' preflight the tires, brakes, hubs...
 
Daleandee said:
Seems others are now following that lead. This is Spirit Engineering’s new aircraft at EAA this year:

View attachment 143749
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This is a pretty cool plane. I did the ground shots for EAA with four of them. $70K out the door, flying airplane. 2 GPH at around 100 mph. Folding wings.

They will also develop a nosewheel conversion for the plane even though the owner doesn't think many people will want it. The main gear is trailing-link and can be turned around when they get the nosewheel ready.

54697134139_8ccaf5e3f3_b.jpg
 
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