How important are aileron gap seals?

soartech wrote:
What is lost without them? One point of glide? What about sink rate?
Is this just for racers? My glider does not have them.
Does anyone have any facts on this?
Thanks.

Our CFI was bitching about the lousy roll rate on the 2-33. We decided to
just put some gap tape over the aileron gap, and it actually improved the
performance markedly.

Peter

On Wednesday, May 22, 2013 9:27:37 PM UTC-5, vontresc wrote:
soartech wrote:

What is lost without them? One point of glide? What about sink rate?

Is this just for racers? My glider does not have them.

Does anyone have any facts on this?

Thanks.



Our CFI was bitching about the lousy roll rate on the 2-33. We decided to

just put some gap tape over the aileron gap, and it actually improved the

performance markedly.



Peter

The 2-33 at the Wichita Gliderport has the ailerons sealed nicely and it is hands down the nicest flying 2-33 I have had the pleasure of flying.

The 'drag queens' may show the most improvement with these kind of small things because they have the most to gain!

On Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:46:22 PM UTC-4, Tony wrote:

The 2-33 at the Wichita Gliderport has the ailerons sealed nicely and it is hands down the nicest flying 2-33 I have had the pleasure of flying.


That may be the single most improbable English sentence ever typed :-).

T8

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:31:14 AM UTC-5, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Wednesday, May 22, 2013 10:46:22 PM UTC-4, Tony wrote: The 2-33 at the Wichita Gliderport has the ailerons sealed nicely and it is hands down the nicest flying 2-33 I have had the pleasure of flying. That may be the single most improbable English sentence ever typed :-). T8

i know its hard to believe but that 2-33 really is nice to fly. It is serial 20, very clean, well sealed, not full of dents, etc. We used to have serial 10 at our club and it was also a nice flying but less pretty glider. I've heard that at some point during the run they decreased the aileron deflection which probably had a negative impact on roll rate.

Thanks for all the good info, especially the narratives of actual
experience. I was thinking of gap "fairings" as opposed to internal
gap seals
mostly because I suspect internal seals are very difficult to install.
External gap "covering" seems more easily done.
It is interesting to know that this affects roll rate as well as glide
performance.