New Guy Question...Airfoil Add-ons?

[braol]

Do they make any kind of STOL 'goodies' for the 140? Namely those series leading edge tabs (or slots) you find on some airplanes? How about stall strips?

Also, how about winglets or wing tip fences for increased efficiency?

Again, new guy questions. Perhaps I need to get into manufacturing if the answer to the above is no, no, and NO...

[V529]

Vortex generators is all I'm aware of.

[5422]

Besides VG’s I thought there was a gap seal kit marketed a long time ago. VG’s or not I think the best STOL mod is keep it light and burn lots of gas practicing takeoffs and landings.

[a64pilot]

You need to realize that a 140 has about the same wing length and wing area of many aircraft of twice the weight.
STOL ops wise the wing isn’t the issue, the little tiny motor is, well that and the fact that the aircraft is designed with a wing angle of incidence that gives it an over 100 MPH cruise and you get to set it for short takeoffs or fast cruise, not both. Cessna chose a fast cruise.
Last weekend we flew with some people to Breakfast, one was a Legend Cub and another was a 65 HP actual Cub, well I slowed down to cruise with them at I think it was 65 or maybe 70 MPH, engine RPM was 2000, Wife was real uncomfortable and made me speed up.
Now that Cub will take off in far less runway than me, if you don’t mind cruising at 65 or so then it’s fine.

Winglets only really do anything at high angles of attack, and almost all GA aircraft don’t fly in cruise at high angles of attack, so for us they would only add weight and drag and slow us down.

a 140 is really aerodynamically a very efficient airplane, and nothing that I know of to include VG’s will do anything but slow one down, even if only a little bit.

Stall strips are there to “fix” an airplane that has ugly stall behavior, the strips causes a section of wing to stall early thereby giving warning. the 140 has very gentle stall behavior, and simply doesn’t need fixing, so no stall strips.

[braol]

Thanks A64pilot for the information. As someone with a new interest in the 120/140 it's all news to me!

I ask about this because my eventual grass landing strip is 1278 feet long. It is a nice, gradual downhill run free of any obstacles which really helps. I might have to pay the electric company to bury part of an electric line on the property, but that's the price of progress. I can also cut the grass on a heading into our prevailing South Westerly prevailing winds to a length of 670 ft...or directly west, just angled to the wind of 962'...although that would dead-end into a tree covered 110' tall hill with a cell tower on top. Not that i'd be flying in fog or anything silly!

[8424]

Hi Braol!

I've been flying out of my 2,000' strip since '91 with trees and power lines on the south end and trees on the other. It's generally a one way in one way out setup (south 1,000' for landing and north 1,000' for takeoff, 50' rise in the middle). I finally got around to asking the electric co. about burying 120' of power line last year. $5,000! So, I'll just keep missing the trees and power lines! Would have been a lot cheaper in '91!

Hopefully you will have a more harmonious outcome with your power company!

Steve A H

[braol]

My powerline problem occurs about 600 feet down my 1300' future strip, so it really kind of HAS to go under. Unless I want to have the powerline go right over the middle. Perhaps flying under the line would be more exciting; the line would cross just before the "wheels off" distance and 175' past the landing ground-roll distance... but I foresee a bad outcome.