Wheel fairings: good news, bad news
The good news is that I got the wheel fairings finished and installed.
The weather was good and the evening was free for getting down to the hangar. I went for a short flight to get a reference speed before installing the fairings. Arbitrarily choosing 5,000′ and using a 75% power setting (24″/2400 RPM/leaned to 50° ROP=max power), I was seeing about 143 knots true airspeed. It was varying between 142 and 144. I also took note of the slip/skid ball, which was just a hair to the left. I landed (one of my best yet), grabbed some dinner, installed the nut plates on the fairings brackets, and installed the fairings.
Major problem. I made the cut outs for the tires while I had the plane jacked. With the tires supporting the plane and bulging a bit, the clearance was no good. I swore at them profusely, took them off, trimmed them some more, and re-installed. I made sure there was a finger thickness all the way around.
I took off again and found the winds to be swirling wildly. A cold front was moving in and bringing more bad weather with it. Still plent of time for a test flight before things turned ugly. I got up to 5,000′ again in a few minutes (it’s so nice having a fast climbing plane) and set up the same power setting. I forgot to record the temp on the first flight and it certainly dropped some, but not enough to affect things very much.
True airspeed was about 149 knots. A 6 knot increase. Very cool! And the slip/skid ball was perfectly centered. I guess I didn’t perfectly line up the fairings, but I ended up cancelling out the very slight out of trim condition I had before. On top of that, it was a very nice evening flight with the sun setting in the west. It was a little bumpy down low, but smooth and cool above 3,000′ with no traffic around.
Now for the bad news. The winds were varying and gusting even worse than when I took off. I made one of the worst landings yet. I kept a little more speed on final to help with controllability. I touched down a little too hard, bounced back up, and then landed on all 3 tires rather ubruptly. It wasn’t a dangerous landing, just hard on the landing gear. Not sure what I could have done better given the circumstances.
I feared the worst for the wheel fairings, and sure enough they cracked at the back of the opening due to the tires bulging out. I guess I didn’t have enough clearance after all. Maybe my fingers are too narrow to be used as a gauge. Luckily, fiberglass is easy to repair.