Wheel Pants


Wheel Pants

On airplanes that do not have a retractable landing gear (see "T" for Tail-Dragger and Tricycle Landing Gear), wheel pants are little ferrings for wheels. They're little covers that help the plane to be less "dirty" and more streamlined in flight. In other words, the air doesn't get caught up on the wheels, but flows right over them, just as it flows over the wings and the fuselage.


The picture above shows our fiberglass wheel ferrings before they were painted. See how the streamlined shape allows air to glide right over the wheels?


In this picture, the gear ferrings, Wheel Pants, have been painted. It's July 4, 2013, and we've just landed in Regina, Saskatchewan, almost 750 miles from home. It would've taken 14.5 hours to drive. It took less than 6 hours to fly ... although we're not yet at our destination. We're still 300 miles away from it.

Have you ever noticed while flying on a commercial airliner, the "bump-bump" shortly after takeoff? It's the retractable landing gear being tucked up into the belly of the jet. The jet behind our airplane obviously has retractable landing gear.




Comments

  1. N J MagasApril 26, 2014 at 5:37 AM

    Very cool! Do they ever take any damage during landing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CathyApril 26, 2014 at 8:32 AM

      The wheel pants are quite delicate, which means that if we want to land on a rough, back country airstrip, we would need to remove the pants and leave them at home.

      Delete

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