Straight and level flight?

[AVanlent]

Hey guys. I have a Kitfox 2, and the weight and balance shows it to be .17" aft of the center of gravity. I'm curious if the Kitfox planes normally fly tail high, or is mine flying tail high in straight and level flight because of the center of gravity being too far aft? It doesn't make sense to me that it would fly tail high since the fuel lines hook to the trailing side of the wing. Just wondering if tail high is a normal attitude for a Kitfox?
Thanks
Andy

[JimS]

The angle/attitude the fuse flies at is determined by how the wing and horizontal stab are aligned with it. (wing and stab are whats doing the flying/lifting, the fuse is just along for the ride). If your comparing the view out the windshield with your typical cessna/piper then yep,you would believe the tail is quite high as the view is really good and the cowl seems like it is low. This is the attitude the Kitfox flies at. You can put your plane level on the ground by lifting the tail until the bottom of the door openings are level and you will see that the tail is indeed quite high.
You will get used to it!

[av8rps]

Andy,

It will take the "Old Timers" here to verify this, but way back when the Model 2 was introduced, right around that time the factory made a change to the incidences that made it easier to see over the round cowl in flight.

It helped that, but unfortunately it also killed some of the cruise speed. Let me guess...your Model 2 cruises about 75 mph? If so, you probably have one of the Model 2's with the incidence change. If you look back at old articles with pictures of Kitfoxes in flight you will see the 2's did in fact fly tail high. The incidence was changed back for the 3's, and ultimately Skystar got things figured out when the Model 4 was analyzed by some new engineers.

Or at least that's the way I heard it... And it does kind of make sense because the 4's definitely fly the best of all the early models.

Paul Seehafer