Serge Vidal wrote: >> I wonder which design would be more efficient, aerodynamically speaking? That one, or the one described in the plans?<<
I can't answer the part about whether or not the plans version of the flaps are effective, but Ken Rand commented that he didn't know how bad he needed them until he had them. Orma would tell you that they are worth it also. He has them and likes them. He retroffitted them later, so he knows what it's like without them. As for split versus "plain" flaps, the split flaps will give you almost as much lift as the plain flaps, but you'll also get a lot of drag to slow you down on landing...similar to a belly board. I'd go for split, personally, but you'd expect that out of me. Mine work great, and lower my landing speed by about 5-6 mph, but mine are pretty big (see http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/99101051.jpg at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/owings.html . I shudder at the thought of landing without them deployed, because I come in shallower and faster, burning up more runway (which I don't have a lot of), and I'm moving faster when I touch down. It may be that I'm just not used to landing that way, and I do practice it sometimes just to remind me how nice my flaps are. I added up my hours and landings the other day, and I'm up to 755 KR landings in less than 1 year of flying. I've actually gotten fairly decent at it, finally. I three point the thing, if you can call it that, but need to extend the gear to get the landing speed down a little lower. Right now I touch down at about 65mph, but I'm still flying. Taller gear will let me drop the speed a little more. The other day I started doing touch n goes on my 2600' strip, and wondering why I've been practicing on 5000' runways... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net http://www.krnet.org/info.html
