I just finished installing the Sportsman on a 182A. It flies great and stalls at 38mph indicated. However it lost approximately 7-10mph in cruise. Prior to the install it would do 145-148mph at 23 squares at 4000’. Now it’s doing about 138. The wings are rigged to factory setup currently. Any advice or suggestions on proper rigging for the early Cessna wing with the Sportsman or is this significant a speed loss to be expected?

Is that speed airspeed, based on your pitot system? Have you looked at GPS, before and after to verify speeds?

If it's pitot based data, I'd suspect that the pitot tube is misaligned. Shouldn't have that much loss of airspeed.

MTV

On my 56 182 I did not notice much difference after the Sportsman install. But I did not check it like and engineer would. I just checked ground speed by averaging and into the wind run then a downwind run.

NMflyer101 wrote:However it lost approximately 7-10mph in cruise.

Dont buy it. Something is wrong with your data. I've installed several, and have never seen a speed decrease. Did you call Willie and go over your findings?

On my my 182E there was no change in cruise speed before/after sportsman. Also no change reported from the 2 customer 180 floatplanes I did several years ago.

I installed the Sportsman on my 170 several years ago and on my 180 a couple of years ago.

If there was any change at all, there was actually a slight speed increase. This doesn’t make much sense, as the mod increases the wing area by 4 square feet.

I did perform before and after flight tests, flying four perpendicular headings and measuring my ground speed in relatively low wind conditions. I measured a couple knots of improvement in the 180. A couple of knots is within measurement error, so I wouldn’t make any solid claims, but that’s what I saw.

Just to add another data point: I haven't noticed any difference in cruise speed since installing the Sportsman either.

Same here, no change in cruise after sportsman. 66 182J

I agree with the previous posts about cruise speed changes. I observed none. Again another data point. Maybe fly a triangle with ground speed averages and see fit there is an actual change in the KTAS average. It might be as MTV states the interference with the pitot tube.

Currently installing a Sportsman STOL kit on my 182-K and curious if any of you are also flying with VG's? Mostly interested in the combination and how this may affect any posted numbers. Also what wing tips are you guys using? I have a set of Madras Super tips and planning to sell them and install some Stene tips. Was tempted to mod them and see what kind of performance numbers I net...........

A pitot tube generally has to be wayyyy misaligned to read that inaccurately. In general, the readings won't vary much within a 10 degree variance in alignment. That is quite a bit.

I have, however, personally experienced a leaky pitot system, and "gained" 4-5 mph IAS as soon as I fixed a cracked connection.

lesuther wrote:A pitot tube generally has to be wayyyy misaligned to read that inaccurately. In general, the readings won't vary much within a 10 degree variance in alignment. That is quite a bit.

I have, however, personally experienced a leaky pitot system, and "gained" 4-5 mph IAS as soon as I fixed a cracked connection.

That's actually what I was suggesting....that in the process of the installation, maybe a fitting in the pitot system was loosened inadvertently or.....??

But, this smells very much like pitot error to me.

MTV