air tabs

tony lee wrote:

I also am familiar with vortex generators since they were installed on two of the planes that I owned and are present on most commercial planes in service toady. Now I'm not sure that any student in a high school class has my flying experience, or racing various vehicles at high speed, but knock yourself out finding one that does. In the meantime, hang on to your pennies.

Ah yes, the vortex generators on planes argument. Coming from a plane owner and car racer no less. If VGs placed in critical areas of the high speed airflow over smoothly contoured surfaces make an improvement because it stops the airflow separating from the wing or flap surface, then of course sticking dozens of them on the extreme back end of a slow moving box will do wonders.
Show me a plane that has them plastered all over the extreme trailing edges of the wing or empennage structure and then maybe we can extend that reasoning to sticking them on the extreme rear of a 60' vehicle

The main thrust of the marketing hype remains vastly improved fuel consumption (yes 4% (if what is being reported is correct) IS a vast improvement) and when you look at what has been done on trucks to improve the aspect ratio - much more aerodynamic fronts, Overcab structures, very small gaps between tractor and trailers and the huge air walls fitted under trailers - and then get told that a few bits of plastic stuck right on the back are going to add another dramatic improvement in fuel use. Sure.

Still, despite a lot of effort put in to debunking such claims, the world is still full of all sorts of imaginative ways to separate people from their money and one constantly-booming sector is 1001 ways to improve your fuel economy and boost the power level, or more usually both economy and power at the same time - or your money back (less P&H) within 14 days.

By that companys own admission they have no way to ACTUALLY determine that the tabs do anything for a motorhome in the handling category...NOR in the fuel economy category. Its all in the warm and fussy feeling is where they excel to whatever extent they might.

And if such devices assist aircraft so well...why havent I seen them on the wings of F16's and F18's...etc.???

Buy and install what you want because I sure wont put the stupid looking things on my own RV...but you're free to slap any amount on your own you wish!