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Vgs vs sportsman

CubDriver218

Registered User
Minnesota
We have a Robertson STOL equipped late model Cessna 180 which is operated on floats in the summer months. I'm thinking I have some time between now and when she goes into the water to put VGs on it as I heard it really helps bring back some of the aileron authority lost to the Robertson. Upon looking - the initial cost of VGs and the Sportsman cuff are comparable. It makes me wonder which of the two would I benefit most from? Hopefully some of you have some real world experience flying with a Robertson and vgs vs a Robertson with the sportsman cuff.
Any recommendations? The VGs would certainly be easier to install

Any advice or info is appreciated.
 
Either one would place you in an interesting position - no testing has been done, so you are the test pilot. The FAA says compatibility is up to the installer.

A friend put a Sportsman on a nice flying cuffed 180, then installed Micro VGs. I am comfortable in a stock 180 at 60 mph on final. I was never really comfortable in that bird - the VGs were glued on with a stock wing template, and no testing was ever done.

I liked the Robertson, but I think the stock cuff or the Horton was a nice addition to a good 180.

Just personal opinion.
 
Sportsman STOL is a 40 hour installation.

What flavor of VG's are comparable in cost to acquire and install? I am surprised at your statement.

No direct experience with RSTOL and VG's combo on my part. A member here had both on his 206. Dunno if he has before VG and after data or seat of the pants reports. Dunno if he had RSTOL leading edge or Sportsman.

I can ask the new owner who is a longtime RSTOL 206 operater of significant skill and wisdom.
 
I talked to the guy who got the AMD STC about the Sportsman with Micros. He was biased, but it was an interesting discussion. I think Jim Richmond had a 185 with Sportsman and AMD, and liked it. This is all ancient history, and I may not remember it perfectly. I will never own a 180 - happy with a Cub and Super Dec - but if I did, it would be a 1961 with center stack, Horton, and 185 gear with Pponk fittings. And leather seats. Red and orange.
 
Sportsman STOL is a 40 hour installation.

What flavor of VG's are comparable in cost to acquire and install? I am surprised at your statement.

I specifically said "initial cost" which I meant as the cost of the parts. the cub crafters VGs which are STC'd for a 180 is about $1500 if I remember right, and the sportsman cuff is around $2000
Of course it all changes rather abruptly when considering the install cost.

I thought I remembered reading about several people who had experience here with vgs on an RSTOL equipped 180? I believed I read somewhere it would help me get some of my aileron authority back.
Also I could have sworn the Sportsman cuff was much preferred over the Horton?

I guess it's all a moot point now that it's mentioned the cuff takes 40 hrs to install.
So it appears I'll be going with the VGs.
It'd still be nice to know what to expect and how you guys like your VGs on your RSTOL 180s

Thanks,
 
Yes. I read that "initial" cost line. I guess I couldnt bother to separate that from installed cost in my head.

So the camber lift leading edge is on both of my acquaintances 206's. The later one is VGed but also has Flint tip tanks. Sso no apple to apple comparisons. Both airplanes "...fly great..." is pretty much what I got from him.

I had heard the VGs give back some aileron authority and probably stated that here somewhere over the years. I have no problem with an RSTOL. I love em. only flown them without VGs

I like a Sporstman better than a Horton. I havent bothered to VG my Sportsman yet. VGed Horton works pretty well. unVGed Horton is nothing like an unVGed Sportsman.
 
Sometimes things that cost more are worth more. But obviously it's a fair question. Someone must have video'd a tufted Cessna wing with and without VG's or with a Sportsman cuff by now. Or maybe done some control input vs roll rate before and after each?

Gary
 
I flew a 1985 Cessna 185, Robertson STOL equipped, for ~ 2000 hours, a lot of that on floats. As an experiment, we then installed a Sportsman cuff. VERY significant difference in stall speed and character. AND, the cuff returned a lot of aileron authority....the Sportsman kit includes aileron gap seals.

I was was very impressed with that combination. I put another ~ 1000 hours on that plane, and it was a real performer.

My only experience with VGs on a Cessna wing was on my 170. I didnt like them, and would have removed them, except it would have damaged the paint. We’re they bad? No, but they did so little positive that they weren’t worth having.

But, I’ve never flown a 180/185 with RSTOL and VGs. I’d do the Sportsman in a heartbeat, though.....40 hours of labor or no.

MTV
 
I offered my opinion in the Stene Aviation Sportsman Blog: https://www.steneaviation.com/pages...ng-originally-published-air-alaska-circa-1989

The interview was via phone while I was at work and the airspeeds were MPH, not Knots as occasionally reported. Whatever. Later after 5K hrs in that C-185 I wouldn't have gone back but can't comment on VG's for that aircraft. I did lots of low and slow turning and twisting on floats, wheels, and skis. Plus common ops at 3600# on floats. It's a set and forget mod that's there for you.

The VG's help much my Taylorcraft's airfoil but didn't on the earlier three Pipers I owned that had them. They have a range of AOA that they are effective (when they're still in the boundary layer). Outside that I don't know much more.

Gary
 
...........My only experience with VGs on a Cessna wing was on my 170. I didnt like them, and would have removed them, except it would have damaged the paint. We’re they bad? No, but they did so little positive that they weren’t worth having. .....

That was my experience with Micro VG's on my old C150/150TD.
But I've been told (both before and after my installation) that "VG's make a whole different airplane out of it".
I'd have to disagree.
I was also told that I didn't fly it slow enough to see the difference.
Don't think that was the case either.
 
At work, we operate a C185 with Robertson, Sportsman, Wing-X, and VGs. I have flown a couple other 185s with just the Robertson and none of the other mods. They are all great, but our bird with all 4 mods is incredible.
 
I have installed many VG's on fixed wing aircraft, from Super Cubs to 206's. I have never had a customer report that they were displeased with the increases that they found. I have a 54' Cessna 180, with Sportsman STOL, Micro Aerodynamic's VG's, and Wing-X Wing Tip Extensions. I have never flown a finer airplane. I regularly fly a Cessna 185 with a 550 Continental and Wing-X, and Sportsman STOL, and still feel that it is missing something without the Micro VG's. The owner doesn't want to install them as he normally installs wing covers and is afraid that they will peel off when he removes his wing covers. I likewise use wing covers on my 180 and have never had that issue. My normal approach speed on wheels is indicating 48-50 kts. I also have an Angle of Attack Pro installed, and normally fly by AOA and feel. Never had an issue there either.
 
Jim
In what order did you mod the wing? Did you do any testing along the way? Considering the Sportsman and Micro VG's. No wing-X. I have a light (1525#) '54.
With a stock wing I can approach at 50-55K at any weight. Not sure it's money well spent.

Thanks,Lou
1
 
I do lose a couple vg's a year from covers, often from wind pulling when I am taking covers off- sometimes just getting in a hurry.

Lou, would be a shame to touch your beauty, but go ahead and do both the sportsman and VG's, you will like it. The Wing X is also a great mod for stol work. My old 57 had the Horton kit, no vg or wing extension and empty I could come in at 40 mph, but she was shaking with the tail almost stalled.

But before you do, ask yourself how short do you need to be landing? Do you get every place you want to now? At the Wad you seem to be going all the places we want to go.
 
I do lose a couple vg's a year from covers, often from wind pulling when I am taking covers off- sometimes just getting in a hurry.

Lou, would be a shame to touch your beauty, but go ahead and do both the sportsman and VG's, you will like it. The Wing X is also a great mod for stol work. My old 57 had the Horton kit, no vg or wing extension and empty I could come in at 40 mph, but she was shaking with the tail almost stalled.

But before you do, ask yourself how short do you need to be landing? Do you get every place you want to now? At the Wad you seem to be going all the places we want to go.

When flying with your group most times .:lol:

Glenn
 
Pete
I use a power on approach with 30 or 40 flaps, stop trimming at 60 ias, and land tail low. Nothing fancy. Just fly it like a Cub.
Lou
 
Troy, the setup you have at work is exactly the setup I want on my next 185.

CubDriver218, if I was going to add VG's to a RSTOL bird I would not choose Micro VG's but rather Roberstson VG's because Robertson developed them specifically for his wing mods. I had them on my 185 and they are different then Micro's. The STC had many owners over the years, including the previous which was Cub Crafters. The good news is the STC recently got sold back to the original company BLR and they are selling them again.
https://www.blraerospace.com/products/vortex-generators/

And instead of tail VGs the kit will include Delta Wings which is how Robertson energized the tail. My 185 had these as well.
 
And instead of tail VGs the kit will include Delta Wings which is how Robertson energized the tail. My 185 had these as well.
Phil, Can you elaborate on these "Delta Wings"? There is no mention of them in the link which you provided and it appears that Sierra Industries (Robertson) has been absorbed into another company which no longer markets the STOL kit. Are these "delta Wings" mounted under the tail? The 185 could use more up elevator authority. I use full nose up trim for landing which as you know precludes a comfortable go around.
 
First I've ever heard of Robertson VG's.
And those "delta wings" look like what GlasStar puts on their airplane.
One on the leading edge near the wing root, and another out pretty much in front of where the flaps & ailerons meet.
(about where the stall fence goes with the Horton etc STOL kits).
 
Robertson never made a VG kit. What Phil is referring to is the Boundary Layer Research VG kit. That kit was developed, and the company is owned by a gent who was a Robertson flight test engineer.....Bob DeRusche (whose name I likely just butchered).

The Cessna VG kits were never sold to anyone as far as I know. He did sell the BLR Super Cub VG kit rights to CC some time back, and they still have them. But maybe they were sold.

The “Vortilons” or “Delta wings” are used on some of the Beaver gross weight increase kits. They must be new to the Cessna kits.....maybe.

Sierra holds the RSTOL STCs, and they’re out of business, at least out of that business.

MTV
 
Thanks, Now I remember seeing them. It would be interesting to see just what they do to the airflow streams to improve the tail control. I had one take off (high winds, big lake) where I ran out of rudder and had to partially retract the flaps (increasing rudder authority) to keep the wing tip out of the water.
 
Troy, the setup you have at work is exactly the setup I want on my next 185.

CubDriver218, if I was going to add VG's to a RSTOL bird I would not choose Micro VG's but rather Roberstson VG's because Robertson developed them specifically for his wing mods. I had them on my 185 and they are different then Micro's. The STC had many owners over the years, including the previous which was Cub Crafters. The good news is the STC recently got sold back to the original company BLR and they are selling them again.
https://www.blraerospace.com/products/vortex-generators/

And instead of tail VGs the kit will include Delta Wings which is how Robertson energized the tail. My 185 had these as well.

I have cub crafter's VG's on my cub and the tail has a strake/delta wing. I wonder if I have their old VGs then, since you state they sold that STC to BLR.
I appreciate the advice and if I do VGs I'd want the ones that work best with the RSTOL. I didn't realize there were VGs specific to that, so thank you!
 
I have cub crafter's VG's on my cub and the tail has a strake/delta wing. I wonder if I have their old VGs then, since you state they sold that STC to BLR.
I appreciate the advice and if I do VGs I'd want the ones that work best with the RSTOL. I didn't realize there were VGs specific to that, so thank you!

Cub Crafters bought their VG kit from BLR several years ago, not the other way around. Here’s the CC web link: http://store.cubcrafters.com/PA-18-Vortex-Generators_p_1528.html

MTV
 
When I bought my previous 185 I was surprised to see the contraptions mounted on top of the wings and no VG's on the tail. The STC was from ATS (Aeronautical Testing Service, Inc) whom I'd never heard of. Puzzled and interested I started researching to figure out what this was all about and that's when I went down the rabbit hole. Here is a synopsis of what I found out.


This is from an ancient AVWeb article:
The use of vortex generators is nothing new. First used in England, VGs have been used on transport jets for decades, and on bizjets since Bill Lear invented them. But historically they were used as an aerodynamic "band*aid" to deal with localized mach buffet problems at the high end of the airspeed envelope. MacDonnell Douglas engineers would routinely scoff at the VGs on Boeing jets and brag, "see, we don't need those things because we got our aerodynamics right in the first place."

The idea of using VGs to improve the low*speed performance of general aviation aircraft came from an ex*Boeing engineer named Paul Robertson. Robertson first tried out his VG idea on a Cessna 206, but while the VGs did lower the stall speed, it degraded the plane's previously docile stall characteristics, so the project was shelved.

Robertson's next VG experiment involved a D*55 Baron that belonged to his partner Mike Anderson. The Baron was famous for having a rather nasty stall characteristics on one engine, but Robertson discovered that the VGs turned the airplane into a pussycat and lowered Vmc a full ten knots to the point that it was below stall.

Convinced that VGs had great promise to make piston twins safer, Robertson started a new company called Friday International (located in Friday Harbor, Washington) together with partners Mike Anderson and Chuck White. In 1987, the company managed to secure the first STC for a VG kit on the Beech Barons. They also put VGs on an A36 Bonanza but never got far along enough with that project to get an STC.

Beginning around 1990, the story of the VG kit business started sounding like a passage from the Old Testament. Disagreements between the partners caused Robertson and White to leave Friday International and, together with their engineering test pilot Bob Desroche, form a new firm called Micro Aerodynamics (http://www.microaero.com) in Anacortes, Washington. This company went on to obtain STC approval for VG kits for numerous piston twins including the Baron 55 and 58, Twin Bonanza, Cessna 310*320*340 and 402*414*421, and Piper Aztec. More recently, the company has obtained STCs for VG kits for most of the rag*wing strut*braced Piper singles (Cub, Super Cub, Super Cruiser, Pacer andTri*Pacer) and the Maules.

Meantime, Friday International changed its name to VG Systems and obtained additional STCs for VG kits on the Cessna 340 and 421B. VG Systems was acquired in 1993 by Beryl D'Shannon (of Bonanza mod fame), who moved the operation to Minnesota and completed the work started by Friday International to obtain STCs for VG kits for the Bonanza A36 and F33.

RAM Aircraft in Waco also decided to get into the act about the same time. Many customers were asking RAM to install Micro Aerodynamics VG kits on their Cessna 300 and 400 series twins while the airplanes were in Waco being fitted with RAM engines. Concluding it would be better to keep the money in*house, RAM obtained its own VG STCs for the Cessna 340/340A, 402C, 414/414A, 421C and 425.

About the same time, back at Anacortes, both Paul Robertson and Bob Desroche decided to depart Micro Aerodynamics to start new aircraft modification companies. Robertson founded Aeronautical Testing Services and proceeded to obtain VG kit STCs for most of the Cessna 300/400 twins and the Piper Seneca, and also for the Cessna 120/140, 180/185 and deHavilland Beaver. Meanwhile, Desroche formed Boundary Layer Research and obtained VG STCs for the Beech Duke, the Piper Navajo, Chieftain and Panther, and also for the Super Cub. Ultimately, in 1997, Robertson and Desroche decided to combine their VG businesses and Boundary Layer Research acquired rights to all of Robertson's VG STCs.


So there you have it. Fast forward a bit and, as Mike said, BLR sold the STC to Cub Crafters. When I had Willie Stene put a Sportsman STOL kit and WingX extensions on my 185 Willie purchased additional "Robertson/ATS/BLR" VG's to add to the WingX extensions. Then a year or two ago I got a letter from BLR telling me they once again owned the STC and were again producing the parts. I though that was great news since while Cub Crafters had the STC they were not producing the Delta Wings and if one of mine got broken I'd have been screwed.


Here is a video link from back in the day that I found on Cub Crafters website. The link hasn't been on their site for years but fortunately the video remains available.


[video=youtube;z80pbIm3SoM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z80pbIm3SoM[/video]
 
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Jim
In what order did you mod the wing? Did you do any testing along the way? Considering the Sportsman and Micro VG's. No wing-X. I have a light (1525#) '54.
With a stock wing I can approach at 50-55K at any weight. Not sure it's money well spent.

Thanks,Lou
1

Lou,

I can’t speak to the cuff, although I have friends who‘ve added it and like it, but I can speak to VGs. If you’re in tune with your airplane and like most of us you fly the attitude when slow? Install VGs and fly the attitude. It’ll be slower than before. Subsequently your landings using the exact same technique as before will be shorter. My own first VG landing was 10% shorter in my 180, and that in a very familiar location with very easy to gauge distances. I’ve knocked off a couple of VGs through the years and those were to fuel hoses. Wing covers have never been an issue, but wing covers are a pain in the butt without VGs so no big difference there. Are the ailerons more responsive when slow? If you’re flying the attitude?No. If you’re flying the ASI? Definitely. Shorter takeoffs? Probably not. Safer, maybe, but not shorter. Slower stall speeds out of ground effect? Who cares? When approaching to land VGs allow you to fly the same exact attitudes behind the power curve at slower speeds. That’s pretty much it, and that’s a big improvement.

SB
 
I also have the ATS VGs on my 185 that were installed in 1995, before I obtained it. It has the 2 Delta wings installed. The Sportsman cuff was installed in 1970. What concerned me was the location of the VGs. They are much further back on the wing than other manufactures. Initially I thought it was due to the fact that the Sportsman cuff was installed after the VGs. I called BLR and they confirmed they are mounted based on a measurement from a point aft on the wing so adding a new longer cuff would not effect their location. They just look way to far back as compared to all the other installations.

One question in the link from Stein there is mention of taking off with 3 notches of flaps instead of 2 in the 180/185. I have never done this and wondering if others have and how they like it.

Tom
 
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