Rooster,

It is my understanding that the wings on the 5 through 7 & SS are identical, including the flaperons with the exception that the standard wing tips on the current SS uses a short wing tip rather than the hoerner style (like you have). So, to get S7 wings on your bird, all you have to do is use the ones you already have!.... how's that for frugal.

Regarding what a person can do to get their best short field performance, probably the best first action is to become totally familiar with the characteristics of your bird and practice short field technique with what you have - and practice with all flap settings - the best flap setting might be different for takeoff than for landing short. I diddled around for a couple years before I felt I had developed the skill to do an actual 900 foot runway......and it worked out fine with room to spare. The reason I mention pilot technique is; although I know Kitfox pilots are on the upper end of the short field performance curve....in practice I see an awful lot of planes of all types burning up 3/4 of our 2,800' runway just because the runway is there.

One thing you have going for you is the horsepower of your existing engine. Also, one of the most effective short field performance ingredients equipment wise is a low pitch climb prop......as long as you aren't so concerned with cruise speed. With the available HP, you should be able to suck the grass out by the roots on a short takeoff run if you have a prop optimised for takeoff/climb. A low pitch prop also helps with shortening the landing roll if you throttle back to less than no-thrust RPM on short final....the prop disk pretty much acts like a big flat piece of plywood and adds a lot of drag. There are a number of threads on this list regarding KF flyers who spend time minimizing idle RPM to assist with short field performance - a good thing to search on.

One thing KFs seem to like is being flown as light as possible. While there is not a lot a person can do about the basic weight of the airplane, making sure the plane is not loaded with non essential baggage helps as well as not carrying the full 26 gallons of fuel in the wingtanks if you can do that with the mission. I suppose, tongue in cheek, a person could consider going on a diet; but, that is sort of like breeding elephants....takes two years to get results

FWIW - I run a Warp Drive prop with a cruise setting in front of a 100 HP Rotax......And I have been careful not to have the idle RPM set higher than it needs to be. That gets me in and out of any airport I have encountered, even those slightly less than 1,000 feet with room to spare....However, I would never have attempted that with just a few hours of KF experience.....lots of practice gets you very close to the advertised short field performance but we do need the practice first. Another minor point which I have found that helps.....not running low pressure in the tires....a higher pressure reduces tthe takeoff roll a minor amount due to reduced rolling resistance. Tire pressure is one of those things we have widly varied opinions about depending on the tires and the landing places we pick. I keep my tires at 25 PSI and then try not to score too high on the richter scale with my landings.

Sincerely,

Dave S
KF7 Trigear
912ULS Warp Drive
St Paul, MN