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I saw a very nice Legacy at Oshkosh owned by Allen
Frazier. What was most impressive was his reported top speed of 263 ktas
at 7,500. (for the cynics out there, he described what sounded to me like
an accurate method for determining his speed)
I spent some time talking to him to try to find out
his "secret" - why is his plane so fast? Apparently, in a former life, he
was an aeronautical engineer and during his build he spent a lot of time paying
attention to aerodynamic details including his cowl inlets (which he narrowed
slightly) and his leading edges which he spent a lot of time getting
right. As far as I recall, he didn't use any of the available "speed
mods". (Allen - please correct me if I am wrong)
This lead me to thinking - after we have finished
closing the wings, h. stab and rudders, put on the BIDS, sanded, put on micro
and sanded again:
- How close are we to the designed
airfoil?
- Is it possible that we may have squeezed the
wing too tight and made it too narrow or added too much micro and
made it too blunt?
- Can we get the correct airfoil by hand
sanding?
- How do we know what the correct airfoil is - by
eyeball?
- Is there a better way?
I am thinking of "templating" my leading edges -
getting a template that is the correct airfoil and attempting to get the leading
edges as close to design as possible.
- Does this make sense?
- Am I wasting my time chasing 1 or 2
knots?
- What is the best method of getting the correct
airfoil?
- Has anyone else done this?
D. Brunner
N241DB
90% done 30% to go
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