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a[_3_]
August 4th 10, 12:49 PM
One of my friends suggested this, you might enjoy trying it too. We
have all seen films of tufts of yarn taped to a wing to show airflow.
If you fly a low winged airplane, try doing it yourself: a third of
the way out your left wing tape 6 inch long pieces of yarn about every
handspan from leading edge to trailing edge -- I put them on a
diagonal -- then do some proficiency flying.

You'll be able to actually see stalls developing -- I doubt it will
make you a better pilot, but actually seeing what happens to the
airflow in clean and dirty configurations was a lot of fun. Scotch
magic take worked for me, and came off cleanly. I didn't want to try
duct tape although my friend told me alcohol wipes cleaned his wing
very well too.

Next time I go flying with a Cessna driver I'll bring tape and yarn, I
think the underside of a wing would not be as interesting but wonder
if the top surface burble curves around the trailing edge a bit.

No go forth and commit general aviation.

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