VOR blade antennas

[GeorgeC]

I've seen little structures sticking out of the vertical stabilizers of straight-tailed Bonanzas before and figured they were aerodynamic doodads, but yesterday I saw one on a 182 tail. Turns out they're VOR antennas. I assume they are for drag reduction?

 

[bnt83]

I've seen little structures sticking out of the vertical stabilizers of straight-tailed Bonanzas before and figured they were aerodynamic doodads, but yesterday I saw one on a 182 tail. Turns out they're VOR antennas. I assume they are for drag reduction?

There are antennas for everything, high speed such as jets and slow speed such as typical piston. Pistons tend to use rod/whip type antennas but can use fiberglass blade types too, they typically just cost more. In this case not really a drag reduction, they just decided to use a blade types.

Some rod types can be easily broken like the short stubby transponder rods on the belly, so I prefer to use the blade type there.