Jeff Scott wrote: " A belly board generates lots of drag, but not lift"
I thought this also, "common knowledge", I believe, and it may not be true "lift" that the belly board generates, but something makes drops the stall speed about 3 mph. I proved this a few weeks ago while calibrating my stall speed on a very calm morning with board up and board down. I did about five tests, and four yielded 3 mph, and one showed 2 mph. Maybe it's just a "lift vector"...a reaction created by simply meeting the oncoming air at an angle, or perhaps it changes AOA of the tail or whole airplane to lower drag, but whatever it is, it unloads the wing enough to drop the stall speed. I was surprised, but that's what the testing shows. It's also interesting that your flaps are on par with the belly board regarding stall speed improvement. To answer somebody else's question, it probably takes two to three times the effort to integrate the short "stock" flaps into the stub wings on a new build as opposed to installing a belly board, but that factor could climb dramatically if you're talking paint repair on an existing plane. Mark Langford, Harvest, AL ML at N56ML.com www.N56ML.com
