Stabilizer Strut Fairings

[jiott]

I just finished installing fairings over my horizontal stabilizer struts. I ordered plastic fairing material from Quad City Aircraft, 5' of their smallest size. It is sized for going over 1/2" round tubing, but it works over the 5/8" tubing on the horizontal stab. It is very light but also sturdy. I'm not sure but I believe it is ABS plastic, similar to the Kitfox lift strut fairing material. I scuff sanded it with 220 grit and it took paint quite well.

It is quite a tight fit over the 5/8" struts and I couldn't slip it on by hand, even after greasing the strut. I finally had success by using 6 rubber faced trigger type bar clamps spaced along the fairing and positioned to squeeze the fairing more open. It then slid on with minimal effort. It was easy to properly position the fairing in the airstream with the clamps on. After removing the clamps, the fairing grips the strut very tightly and I decided that no glue was needed to keep it in proper position.

Time for a flight test! After about 1 hour of straight and level testing at 2000' and 5200 rpm (my normal cruise setting), I was able to measure the following results compared to previous testing without the fairings: The fairings gave me a solid 2 mph (maybe even 2.5) speed improvement, and a 0.1 gph reduction in fuel consumption-measured by my fuel flow meter. I believe these results are reasonably accurate and done with as much "apples-to-apples" comparison as I could, but of course I am no Chuck Yeager test pilot. Well worth the effort and cost ($35 + paint) in my opinion. Pictures below.

[jrevens]

That looks real nice, Jim!

[500helicrazy]

I'm going to try this as well! I need some for the lift struts too. Thanks for sharing!

[efwd]

Those look great Jim. I'm in also. Thanks for the lead.
Eddie

[jiott]

Engineers always have to put numbers to things so I did a little simple math and the improvements I reported amount to $0.71 for a 100 mile trip, or roughly $0.71 savings per hour of cruise flight at 5200 rpm and $4.00 per gallon clear Mogas. This is more than I expected. Imagine what the dollar savings are for the lift strut fairings, which most people claim to be about 10 mph improvement!

[Esser]

Hey Jim. I’m looking on their website and their small seems to be for up to 1.25 tubing. I can’t seem to find the even smaller stuff you have.

[jiott]

Its there, but easier to just call and ask.

[jiott]

After several more days of flying with the new stab strut fairings, I will back off slightly on my claim of a good solid 2 mph increase and settle in on a solid 1.5 mph increase and some fuel consumption decrease but hard to measure. Still very worth doing for such a low cost, light weight and easy, plus it looks kind of cool. I might tackle the jury struts next, but I'm still looking for something smaller than the ideas presented so far on this forum. I may use triangular shaped balsa (sold at RC stores for aileron material) shape it to be glued on to the backside of the struts, and the wrap the whole thing in tough leading edge tape.

[Esser]

Lowell put mine in the mail. I’ll let you know how it goes although, I will have no before and after comparison. And it might be s couple months to get data even then

[Esser]

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. I just received my jury strut fairing Lowell did an amazing job. They are incredibly nice and are extremely light weight. I think this is a no brainer mod.