Cessna 120-140 Association

Is there any improvement in cruise speed with wheel pants?

6681 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:52 pm Is there any improvement in cruise speed with wheel pants?

Yes! You'll notice a need to constantly slow down in the pattern to keep from running over the Bonanzas and Mooneys! Seriously, no...if anything, they may slow it down a 100th of a MPH...but, they sure do add to the neat look and they help keep mud and stuff from slinging up on the wings, etc.. Mac

2066 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:53 am

6681 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:52 pm Is there any improvement in cruise speed with wheel pants?

Yes! You'll notice a need to constantly slow down in the pattern to keep from running over the Bonanzas and Mooneys! Seriously, no...if anything, they may slow it down a 100th of a MPH...but, they sure do add to the neat look and they help keep mud and stuff from slinging up on the wings, etc.. Mac

Me thinks that wheel pants were put these aircraft by Cessna to compete with the Luscombe which has similar wheel fairings. As you've mentioned Mac, I've heard that pants on this design actually do very little if nothing in speed, but do dress up the looks of the aircraft. Cessna has a great marketing department to sell airplanes.

Personally, they look great, but occasionally I train someone in one them, and do miss the ability to step up on the tires to check the fuel when the airplane is equipped with pants. Also makes it more difficult to inspect the condition of the tires.

You can easily see how much faster she is with the wheel pants.

8141 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:48 pmN1826N No Pants.jpg

.....................yes! It's obvious!!!

Just a little banter for fun here: in my humble opinion wheel pants are dress shoes and bare tires on a taildragger are hiking boots. Rugged is beautiful and taildraggers with spring gear were made for grass, not mere turf but 6 to 12 inch tall grass. Mud splattered on the underside of a high wing means someone has been having fun or working hard or both, for which taildraggers were designed. Again in the humble opinion department, wheel pants are better suited to Cherokees on paved runways.

Several years ago John posted a fantastic picture of his beautiful 120 in a field in Kansas that really shows the essence of the type of flying these airplanes were made for. John if you would post that photo again sometime it would be great to see it again.

Mike

Mike you have a good memory. I don't remember which photo that was but here is one taken July 15, 2014 at the March 31, 1931crash site of TWA 599 (Transcontinental and Western Air) which took the life of Knute Rockne among a total of 8 fatalities. This site is in a pasture near Bazaar KS. If you look carefully you will see a monument in the background to those who died that day. Below is a link to my landing on a different day. The landing roll ends near a pile of rock which, according to local legend is the spot from which Rockne's body was retrieved. Local legend about this story abounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc9wVsp ... gs=pl%2Cwn

Not a single knot or MPH gained in my opinion.

Plus, they get in the way all the time when refueling or cleaning the windscreen or whatever, and you can't stand on the tires.

But, one of the first things I did when I bought my airplane almost 9 years ago was to purchase a set of Matt Lahtai carbon fiber pants and except for annuals, they haven't left the plane once.

They're like my jewelry...except on my airplane

The only practical thing I can see is they keep mud from spattering on the bottoms of the wings of the airplane.

Mike