Mark Patey flight testing VGs (Vortex Generators) on a Wag Aero Super Cub

it's like a flying cowboy christmas in here stuff from aircraft spruce we know what it is because it doesn't weigh anything it's the only thing i've ordered this last week vgs so these are awesome they drop your stall speed they make you safer um if they work they make you look like a better pilot because you can get into smaller and smaller air strips into the back country for a flying cowboy if you don't have them on your airplane you're kicked out of the club so um we figured we just unpackaged these there's nothing else in here i got a receipt those of you who are wondering um this is the stall speed vortex generator 120 there's 120 in each box i've got a couple of them because it's only 96 bucks 50 cents it's nothing i went with the stove speed because they're flexible so if you hit them when you're washing top your wing it doesn't pop the glue off but they should bend that's the theory there's a lot more expensive vgs out there but i've heard that people have good results with these so the goal is to flight test the airplane install the vgs go flight test it again have real accurate data we'll make sure the plane weighs exactly the same amount before and after and uh we got more than we need these are let's see what we've got in the box [Music] all right we're going to be doing some stall tests we're giving ourselves a nice safe altitude we know exactly how much fuel we got in the plane we'll fill it back up for the same point come through the same procedures after we install the vg's do a clearing turn now that we're out here in a good practice area we'll finish this turn on a heading that lets me have my eyeballs working this will be a lot better okay let's see where this thing stalls at we'll come out of this thing we're gonna first do a power off stall roll this down there's the aoa coming alive planes coordinated stall horns start to come on a little bit coming on more more more 50 49 48 47 46 still clear 45 come on baby 45 let's pull there it is kind of between 43 and 44. let's try that again [Applause] slow this thing down no power there's 44 43 there it is 42 and a half again so there is a clean configuration stall let's do another clearing turn we'll do some more this time we're gonna go full flaps and uh get a landing configuration set up there's always fun there's the warning a lot more back pressure now 45 44 43 i'm all the way back on the stop i don't think it's gonna stall 42 43 44 45 i can't pull that stick back anymore without breaking it off that's it 42 the nose is starting to drop again so it's kind of a falling leaf 44. hit that one get that nose up 43 42 nose is starting to drop that's it so full flaps i couldn't ever get it to break let's build our altitude back up do another clearing turn so interesting difference between full flaps and no flaps is basically the same speed we got a half mile per hour slower stall whereas before 42 and a half stalls it starts to just brush and i can hold that stick all the way back i don't have enough elevator authority to really get it to break so we're almost back up for altitude guys still look here nobody on the box all right there's my safe altitude again let's get on a nice heading let's start slowing down we'll simulate a landing with some power in see where it stalls there's full flaps i'm going to kind of get down behind the power curve start bringing a little power in 47 46 45 taking a lot of right rudder and similar on 39 38 36 35 34 right rudder right rudder looking good coming back 38 37 36 35 30 yeah 32 there it went awesome those are some good numbers those are good baseline numbers let's go put some vg's on this thing see what happens and we're back in the pattern now saying i've used 1.7 gallons of fuel total for this little exercise not much these cubs don't burn a lot and we're going to be there's 1.8 we'll see what we are on the ground we'll add exactly that amount of fuel for our next test the template so that's nice and this is actually good quality 60 millimeter spacing 90 millimeter spacing 30 millimeter spacing so that's nice i got some really gold paper must make it worth 96 dollars so here's your still speed vg's we're going to read that i'm not going to make you watch but we'll read that and uh but basically about seven percent of chord is where you're going to want to put your vg's some people go farther forward some people go back but generally seven percent of chords where we're going gonna put them so uh we'll go through that here's the v this these are the vg's these are awesome they're flexy but i'm not liking the look of this sticker this is gonna be freaking a ton of work wait oh yes so i thought we were going to have to sit and cut all these out but look at that we are not going to have to cut any of these stickers we just have to stick those puppies on there and start sticking them on the wing so heart attack avoided we don't have to cut it it's ready so paxton's in the background there getting the wing all clean taking off the bugs and getting any residue off so we can have good adhesion and so we're going to get this done we're going to go test it wish us luck [Music] all right i'm so glad that's over with it didn't take a whole lot of time we had three people working on it took 23 minutes so one person about an hour it feels like forever i say turn on some good music we didn't do that and you'll have it done in an hour right now i know somebody's going he wasted all that pain he should have put it close together not worried about it don't hate [Music] one hour we can do it again all right i'm here with my buddy zeb we did it we did it it's done they're in there it may be tough to see if a bunch of vg's up on that wing sun's down no flying tonight no flying i don't think we want to do stall tests in the dark not smart so tomorrow plus on video wouldn't look that great no there's nothing to see you know i don't have any video on the wing of this when we were all i had was in the cockpit maybe tomorrow we'll have to set up some cameras and and on the plane tomorrow's the test we'll let you know how it goes and of course get all your paperwork in order don't know what it is about airplanes but if they don't have the right paperwork they can't fly it's magic magic paperwork get it done we need to add 1.9 gallons of gas that'll get us to the exact fuel we took off yesterday apply the same flight path it is 1.9 and be the exact same weight i'm excited it's leaking i hate leafy gas cans [Applause] he'll be coming to watch we'll go out to the practice area but uh again even with the six inch gear on this thing i don't have enough angle of attack those dgs are going to do much i'm sure they help a little bit but like i said i couldn't tell anything on takeoff last night we're going to do the test doing the test without high angle of attack um for steep turns and stalls power on power off so you don't even want to know what the airplane does but it's just me in it so what are you climbing at 1800 yes that's awesome all right so what's gonna happen here we're gonna clear these skies like you always would and we're going to start off just like before with a hour off stall no collapse and i don't suspect we're going to see much of a change because well we might we were stalling at 42 and a half miles an hour before and it was the wing stalling not the tail then we'll do a power off full flap stall and then we'll do power on stalls with without flaps all right there's first indication i got packaging up there we're good coming back on that stick angle of attack it's going to change the pitch of the beep a little bit keep that ball coordinated coming back turning red 48 47 46 45 44 all the way back on the stick now it wants to that's it it's not breaking all the way back it's kind of wandering around between 42 and 47. the wings not stalling that's totally different than yesterday's test and that the wing did stall right now we're kind of the same situation as yesterday with full flaps where the wing didn't stall and the tail stalled right now oh that's why i can't see anymore you climbed up above well that's really smart okay well you just be the hawk hunting the prey let's circle around i'm gonna climb the altitude back we're gonna do a full flap okay so we're coming around eyes are clear it's calm we made sure that we watched the temperatures today to try to get out the exact same temperature the barometric pressure hasn't changed between yesterday today density altitudes therefore the temperature pressure is the same this is an exact test of both days dead call it's been fantastic right packs are rolling on the dewey's kenny we're gonna do another uh stall full flaps no throttle all right here we go this will be fun both flats and throttle full flaps no throttle this time one knots we're full and my prediction is it's the wing is not going to stall we're just going to run out of tail last time you the weakness 42 41 40. hey look at that 39 38 37. oh yeah let's do that again just a little bit of throttle i thought i had pulled full throttle but i hadn't so here we go getting the throttle all the way out this time mr mark bottle's all the way out all right 46 45 we're staying coordinated all the way back that's back i'll break that stick off before it comes out 42 41 nose is dropping sticks all the way back see that all the way back got nothing 43 coming back to 42 exact same result as yesterday because it's the tail we might want to put some dgs on the end of the side of that tail so that's it now we're going to get some real stalls now with some power in all right what we expected uh the wing of course held on with full flaps and couldn't get enough ankle of attack without uh the engine blowing air over those cell feathers so i'm gonna climb back up to our altitude we'll reset i'm in the right turn this is gonna be the fun test now the thing about the bg's they're gonna hold on hold on hold on when they finally let go you're a lot higher rank of attack and those are gonna drop so here's where we'll find out we've never had any unpredictable behaviors with this airplane and all our flight testing it's been very good no tendency to want to spin or drop one wing or the other with vg's on gonna get a higher angle of attack when it does let go it will be more aggressive that's a nice little fuel burn all right packing up halfway through my turn i'll be lining up on the same heading again and my safe altitude's there so we're going to come into a full flap with power in and see where she stalls all right rolling out there's my heading this is a kind of an approach to landing power setting and we're going to get a little bit behind the power curve without flaps so i was taking a lot more rudder nose coming up got power in there i'm keeping about 1700 rpm that changes for every aircraft with your prop of course but they go there's a good 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 we're coordinated 35 there's the drop 35 and a half so that's pretty dang good no flaps 35 and a half at 1700 rpm i like it so we're gonna make another clearing turn climb back up to our altitude and do it again i didn't even lose much i lost 50 feet with that well sunshine on my face can't see anything plenty of clearing turns and have good traffic systems i'm a safety pilot right up there accident in my carbon cup just hanging out watch it didn't have more eyeballs on the sky all right here we go again coming back around all right paxton i'm coming back around to our new east heading again and we're gonna go both laps with power on we're gonna get a behind the power curve there's our heading roll out level some power in a little more power than that right there there we go we want it to be consistent it's not consistent doesn't mean anything all right here we go 50 48 49 keeping it coordinated coordinated a lot of rudder there tornado there's the stall there's the angle of attack just screaming push push that arrow's just going down down 32 32 keep pulling back it's not let go 31 30. there it is 29 is when it really broke let's do that again we'll just keep that recoveries a little bit 48 45 43 42 38 37 36 35 43 32 31 30 29 28 and a half 28 right there same spot so let's recover laps out of it i'm happy with that i'm gonna do a couple other little things i'm gonna do one more clearing here that got all the way down to uh 28 miles an hour at this weight um with a little power in behind the power curve before that thing broke so it made an improvement and i'm excited to kind of review our video and see what our numbers were yesterday and really compare it well that sounds like a significant improvement actually it's a pretty that's pretty impressive i'm i'm i'm happy me too you're gonna love the perfect circles i'm making on your uh trail well that'll be uh that'll be there until we have to clear them out this is a remembrance really drop and come around let's see if we can't get this thing to kind of do an ugly break up some fun sounds good i'll be your aerial support my clearing turn around i got my altitude set back up a little bit higher this time and we're out over farmland but i want to be out over farmland farmland without houses anywhere i mean we're in the practice area but i want the super clear practice area because if we unwind this thing out of the sky a little bit i don't want anyone on the ground to be feeling like they need to call the authorities worried that an airplane was falling but we're of course thousands of feet up agl we are way safe way high and um we're doing this by the book i packed something to slow down and get set up for another another one okay let's get the sick back i'll see what a steep turn right there does let's drop that thing yeah of course there's a sick right let's recover that thing get some rudder [Music] nothing super predictable behaves itself i'm a very happy man i want my son to have a lot of good safe flight hours in this aircraft and he's going to all right paxton there's fun where people are looking at a boost on the ground and low and slow and pull them tight around we're gonna we're gonna try that one that's a good one that's the one where most people stall into the ground yeah unfortunately it's it's uh people don't practice it and then they uh they get themselves in it not never knowing when their plane was gonna do its home so we're gonna just do one notch of laps which should be kind of what we're doing when we're slow and slow in the back country trying to look at something um you could do full flaps of course but i think this is better appropriate real world more like well half laps all right we are cranking and banking i've got the aoa alive already 70 indicated that aos tell me you got eyes on me passing that is that tight turn that's awesome man i think it's just uh it's a stable bird was it just holding on oh yeah it was the angle single attack doesn't care how much steep you turn and it just it just does what it's supposed to always cares about is aoa doesn't care which if your wings are leveled on the horizon or not that was fun worthwhile exercising we finally got it done sorry it took so long to get part two out we had a big apple crash meltdown it took them weeks to fix it but they did recover everything that was lost on all my devices amazing so to the point that really matters here's the summary of the video um did we get an improvement yeah five miles an hour we did quite a few tests that aren't on the video um try to keep it as short as possible so i'll try not to ramble here five miles an hour overall is huge and for those of you that fly fast planes that might not seem like a lot but for those of you flying bush planes you know that's that's huge five miles an hour from 30 to 33 miles an hour down to 28 it's like almost 20 percent um that's the difference between getting in and out of some strips in fact faith is one of my favorite airstrips um it's beautiful it's challenging it's a very high altitude on the side of the mount with a cliff on one side a cliff on the other side and you have to be behind the power girv and hit your spot and not flip over by the time you get to the other end jason snead and myself are the only ones so far in our flying group that have ever been able to get on and off of that everyone else hasn't been able to do it they're full throttle and throwing it off the cliff on the other side i don't think i could get uh paxton's airplane on and off of faith with a 32 and a half mile an hour stall speed just don't think it's possible but a whole five mile an hour more margin i can do it i mean it's that big of a deal i think i mean that particular airstrip's an extreme example but but it's not just added safety we can go places that we couldn't go before because of uh that margin so safety is the biggest thing some people asked about other impact now we didn't put it in the video because it's too hard to quantify for example you're going to want to know how they how does it feel in the ailerons um no i didn't feel anything different in cruise normal flight it felt exactly the same but at low speed high angle of attack approach to landing way more authority in the ailerons unquestionably i couldn't put a percentage on it because they didn't have a way to measure that but if i had to say how much more authority probably 30 40 more authority when you're really behind that power curve dragging it in if a wind gust hits you in the side i can throw that aileron stick to the side and have a significantly faster roll rate to recover from being shoved around by the wind so that's a big safety thing and it was very noticeable did not have to talk myself into it top speed so nothing no negative no positive nothing measurable um nothing to report there if i saw a mile an hour or two one way or the other i would tell you i just literally saw nothing on the top end on this airplane i know some people have reported results on their aircraft plus and minus i can't i saw nothing this was such a big change on this aircraft the the aoa which was calibrated perfectly before the bg's it's worthless now it comes on way too soon i mean i i gotta go back up and recalibrate the aoa and that's freaking awesome that's that's a big deal uh that it's changed that much that aoa's gotta be redone and that's going to make for a safer pilot and a safer airplane and i'm excited for that last thing oh is it worth it uh yeah i've never done anything in aviation racing motorcycles four-wheelers cars nothing in my life ever have i spent a hundred dollars in six hours and got that much improvement ever ever school education i i can't think of anything i mean it's it's huge i've done a lot of things to our race planes that were marginal negligible barely measurable um this was a big deal and so for those of you who have certified airplanes and when you're like well hey mark you only spent 96 bucks on your bg kit because you're experimental you're right but let me tell you what if this was a certified plane and that vg kit was a thousand dollars 100 right now today no matter what period the end happening period there's nothing for 800 or a thousand bucks it's going to give you that much improvement and safety and margin in the back country that's my report guys fly safe fly often stay current know your aircraft's limits know your limits never exceed either one that's the goal take care

Channel: Mark Patey

Views: 91,832

Rating: 4.946301 out of 5

Keywords: Best Tugs, Super Cub, VG, Mark Patey, Patey Twin, Stall Testing

Id: aXS0nF1ILns

Length: 24min 37sec (1477 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020