Amongst learning to fly Miss Tango, I have also been chipping away on the main gear fairings over the past few months. This is quite a time consuming job, but the two main gear legs and wheels are now done.
Test flying with the nose gear leg and wheel still to be done has revealed a significant speed increase due to the reduced drag. At 75% power, 5,000' AMSL, I now get 145KTAS at 30L/hr. Full power at this same altitude results in 157KTAS at 36L/hr.
I'm hopeful of another 5KTAS increase when the nose gear fairing is done. That would put me at 150KTAS economy cruise. Wow!
