See lots of older 180s w/out strut cuffs. A friend of mine had to remove them on one side to do a small little fix. Guess he flew it around n said in now flew almost a full bubble out. Put them back on (actually the new split version) n bubble back to the center. Can't say how much it is in actual seed, but betting its measureable. Thought id sthrow that out there if anyone would care to trade a little weight for speed

Good tip Dave - I am repainting mine tomorrow!

SKYLANEDAVE wrote:...A friend of mine... flew it around n said in now flew almost a full bubble out. Put them back on (actually the new split version) n bubble back to the center.

Sorry... but I call BS.

I'm not so sure that he isn't correct Mr. Hren. There appears to be the possibility of some drag associated with the cuff and how it attaches.

Further flight tests might be needed to know for sure.

akgreg wrote:I'm not so sure that he isn't correct Mr. Hren. There appears to be the possibility of some drag associated with the cuff and how it attaches.

Further flight tests might be needed to know for sure.

HA
Thanks, now I need to find a towel and clean the coffee from my keyboard!!

My 1953 model 180 doesn't have strut cuffs, at the wing end or at the fuselage end. A guy at my airport just replaced the cuffs on his 180, and gave me his old ones which are actually in pretty good shape. I'm not convinced they would make a helluva lot of different on airspeed or fuel burn. Also don't think they add much to the looks- esp since the white cuffs don't match my off-white airplane. In any event, installing those cuffs is not very high at all on my to-do list. In fact, I'd be tempted to sell 'em if someone wanted to buy 'em.

I don't find them particularly attractive either, will also add that the plane didn't have the standard strut seals n no doubt that caused more than normal drag. No idea what it relates to speed wise, but It was almost a full bubble, at sixty all the way to one fortyfive. By know means definitive, but absolutely true in this case. YMMV

Just replaced mine n like the way they look. These are the Stene split cuffs, fine product!

SKYLANEDAVE wrote:I don't find them particularly attractive either, will also add that the plane didn't have the standard strut seals n no doubt that caused more than normal drag. No idea what it relates to speed wise, but It was almost a full bubble, at sixty all the way to one fortyfive. By know means definitive, but absolutely true in this case. YMMV

I'm with bigrenna on this one. Tell him to check his rudder trim

Actually guys, as ridiculous as it sounds, there is a scientific explanation to the anomaly of aircraft adverse yaw when a strut cuff is removed from one side of the plane but not the other. It is called the Coriolis effect.

Although the general public most associates the Coriolis effect with snipers, thanks to the movie “Shooter”, those of us who hunt are even more aware of the Coriolis effect. Before I go on I know there are some who grew up in a cave that are asking “What the hell is the Coriolis effect?”.

Google defines it as “an effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis effect) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems.”

By coincidence I’m currently writing a paper for the Scientific Aircraft Physics Society where I postulate that in addition to the well accepted definition I’ve listed above, there is also a much simpler phenomenon at play here. It was as a hunter that I first experienced this new phenomenon that I believe is actually an extension of the Coriolis effect. I have encountered this experience for many years so have ample scientific evidence to back up my hypothesis.

I’ve hunted both north and south of the equator so have been able to prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. Let me give you an example from both hemispheres. On a hunt years ago right here in Texas, in the northern hemisphere, I took a shot at a mouflon sheep at just 50 yards. I fully expected to hit the animal but much to my surprise I missed to the right. A quick check of my ballistic tables told me there was no way the Coriolis effect, as currently defined by the scientific community, could have had that big a role at such close yardage. I was, to say the least, puzzled.

A year or so later found myself hunting in the Southern Hemisphere, in Argentina actually, with a good friend who took a hundred yard shot at a Red Stag and missed, to the left. Again I checked my ballistic tables, and knowing what an excellent shot my friend is, because he told me so, he couldn’t have missed unless some external force was at play. You guessed it, the Coriolis effect. But again it just didn’t make sense that this alone could have that big an impact at only 100 yards. Clearly some further scientific study was called for. Then it came to me in a moment of brilliant stupification. Not only was the bullet’s trajectory being altered by the Coriolis effect, but, in both these cases, the turning of the earth was moving the animal the opposite direction of the bullets altered path! A clear and plausible explanation of the missed shots!

“So what does this have to do with an airplane’s cuff removal causing adverse yaw?” you ask. I was just getting to that. Again, in the northern hemisphere, an object moving through the air will be deflected to the right by the Coriolis effect. We’ve been taught to attribute this drift to a wind factor, and in point of truth that sometimes is the overriding cause. SkylaneDave was unaware of this but his friend removed the right side cuff, thereby increasing drag on the right side strut which caused an almost imperceptible yaw to the right. However, combined with the Coriolis effect the effect was doubled which manifested itself by the pilot being a full bubble out. Oops, sorry, Freudian slip, the airplane was a full bubble out.

This event is rarely experienced by bush pilots as they generally fly in or near ground effect where the atmosphere, when in close proximity to the surface of the earth, experiences a drag coefficient of sufficient magnitude that it counters the Coriolis effect. Easy to accomplish since the airplane is not in contact with the earth so is not rotating with the earth. I should note here that taildragger Ground Loops, which have long been thought to be the result of inattentiveness on the pilots part, are actually triggered by the Coriolis effect in conjunction with the turning of the earth. This explanation is further proved out by the nose draggers inability to land straight.

P-factor of course plays a role in all of this but I don’t really have time to go into that now.

Fortunately for all of us there is a brilliant ornithologist, who also fancies himself an aircraft designer, who realized that birds don’t seem to be affected by this phenomenon. After years of dedicated research and experimentation in an undisclosed location, and a couple of minutes in a makeshift wind tunnel, he has come upon a solution for a problem that never really existed. One of my operatives, at great risk to bodily harm for himself and his family, managed to take photographs of the prototype just today. I don’t believe that to be coincidental, do you?

Through tremendous generosity and selflessness, I unveil to you, here, now, these pictures. (Nobel Peace Prize?)

Barnstormer wrote:Actually guys, as ridiculous as it sounds, there is a scientific explanation to the anomaly of aircraft adverse yaw when a strut cuff is removed from one side of the plane but not the other. It is called the Coriolis effect.

Although the general public most associates the Coriolis effect with snipers, thanks to the movie “Shooter”, those of us who hunt are even more aware of the Coriolis effect. Before I go on I know there are some who grew up in a cave that are asking “What the hell is the Coriolis effect?”.

Google defines it as “an effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis effect) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems.”

By coincidence I’m currently writing a paper for the Scientific Aircraft Physics Society where I postulate that in addition to the well accepted definition I’ve listed above, there is also a much simpler phenomenon at play here. It was as a hunter that I first experienced this new phenomenon that I believe is actually an extension of the Coriolis effect. I have encountered this experience for many years so have ample scientific evidence to back up my hypothesis.

I’ve hunted both north and south of the equator so have been able to prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. Let me give you an example from both hemispheres. On a hunt years ago right here in Texas, in the northern hemisphere, I took a shot at a mouflon sheep at just 50 yards. I fully expected to hit the animal but much to my surprise I missed to the right. A quick check of my ballistic tables told me there was no way the Coriolis effect, as currently defined by the scientific community, could have had that big a role at such close yardage. I was, to say the least, puzzled.

A year or so later found myself hunting in the Southern Hemisphere, in Argentina actually, with a good friend who took a hundred yard shot at a Red Stag and missed, to the left. Again I checked my ballistic tables, and knowing what an excellent shot my friend is, because he told me so, he couldn’t have missed unless some external force was at play. You guessed it, the Coriolis effect. But again it just didn’t make sense that this alone could have that big an impact at only 100 yards. Clearly some further scientific study was called for. Then it came to me in a moment of brilliant stupification. Not only was the bullet’s trajectory being altered by the Coriolis effect, but, in both these cases, the turning of the earth was moving the animal the opposite direction of the bullets altered path! A clear and plausible explanation of the missed shots!

“So what does this have to do with an airplane’s cuff removal causing adverse yaw?” you ask. I was just getting to that. Again, in the northern hemisphere, an object moving through the air will be deflected to the right by the Coriolis effect. We’ve been taught to attribute this drift to a wind factor, and in point of truth that sometimes is the overriding cause. SkylaneDave was unaware of this but his friend removed the right side cuff, thereby increasing drag on the right side strut which caused an almost imperceptible yaw to the right. However, combined with the Coriolis effect the effect was doubled which manifested itself by the pilot being a full bubble out. Oops, sorry, Freudian slip, the airplane was a full bubble out.

This event is rarely experienced by bush pilots as they generally fly in or near ground effect where the atmosphere, when in close proximity to the surface of the earth, experiences a drag coefficient of sufficient magnitude that it counters the Coriolis effect. Easy to accomplish since the airplane is not in contact with the earth so is not rotating with the earth. I should note here that taildragger Ground Loops, which have long been thought to be the result of inattentiveness on the pilots part, are actually triggered by the Coriolis effect in conjunction with the turning of the earth. This explanation is further proved out by the nose draggers inability to land straight.

P-factor of course plays a role in all of this but I don’t really have time to go into that now.

Fortunately for all of us there is a brilliant ornithologist, who also fancies himself an aircraft designer, who realized that birds don’t seem to be affected by this phenomenon. After years of dedicated research and experimentation in an undisclosed location, and a couple of minutes in a makeshift wind tunnel, he has come upon a solution for a problem that never really existed. One of my operatives, at great risk to bodily harm for himself and his family, managed to take photographs of the prototype just today. I don’t believe that to be coincidental, do you?

Through tremendous generosity and selflessness, I unveil to you, here, now, these pictures. (Nobel Peace Prize?)

Thank you for the very scientific explanation Phil!

LOL, and you guys thought I'd made it up!

Barnstormer wrote:

I call bullshit! This poor allergic plane was obviously stung by a swarm of bees...

Yup, thats an advanced case of wing cancer

So Mr. Barnstormer,
Do you also have to be a member of the Mensa Society in order to be one of the SAPS that you are writing the paper for? All of these big words makes my head hurt.

I thought the only thing the coriolis effect did was determine which way the water in the toilet bowl swirled on it's way down.

Skalywag wrote:Just replaced mine n like the way they look. These are the Stene split cuffs, fine product!

You gonna polish them to match the airplane?

hotrod180 wrote:..... In fact, I'd be tempted to sell 'em if someone wanted to buy 'em.

Posted them for sale on the marketplace forum.