On May 12, 10:22*pm, Jim Logajan wrote:
"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk @See My Sig.com wrote:





"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
. ..
"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk @See My Sig.com wrote:
"Peter Dohm" wrote in message
...
With the quest for efficiency, in recent years, most of the newer
tri-gear designs have featured free castering nose wheels. *That has
certainly reduced the aerodynamic drag of the nose wheel;

Moving it to the back and reducing the size by a factor of 4 would do
even more...

Vans RV-6, 7, 8, and 9 experimentals can be built with tricycle gear and
conventional gear.

Without cheating and looking at the advertised performance difference
between the two gear choices at identical power settings, what would
either
of you guess the percentage difference in speed might be?

Two or three?

About 1 percent. At most 1.5%. The "A" models have the nosewheel, so here
are the performance figures Van's claims (I've read others say that he is
pretty honest about the performance numbers he lists):

http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/r...ic/rv-9per.htm

I think the RV-9 compared with the RV-9A at 118 HP, 55% power, and gross
weight shows the largest percent difference at about 1.4% faster for
conventional gear. Oddly, all the aircraft show about 2 mph difference,
regardless of power setting.

Or are you going to tell me that the nosewheel with wheel pants and a
fairing is faster than the tailwheel hanging out in the breeze?

Sure, go ahead, try to destroy our hopes, our dreams, our pre-concieved
misconceptions just for the sake of reality.

No hopes, dreams, or pre-conceived misconceptions shattered, alas, but
perhaps beaten up a bit, eh? :-)

Well, at least there's always several RV-6s on the market at all
times, some very reasonable. Here's one from an estate sale.
They're only asking 45. You could offer 39 and take it from there.

http://barnstormers.com/listing_images.php?id=345031

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Mark