My opinion for what it is worth. I am not convinced the square tip wing, or extended wing, actually makes a difference. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever done a comparison. The whole reason I had those wings is that I intended to try to do a comparison evaluation. The problem is no one (to my knowledge) has changed out ONLY the wings (ie one variable) and done a serious flight test evaluation. The same airframe has never had both sets of wings. In every case an airplane is built, then the owner/builder lauds the performance of the square tip wing with no true comparative data. He is comparing it to a completely different airplane.
The only way to find out if there is a performance difference is to fly the exact airframe with both sets of wings, controlling the variables as much as possible, and doing a controlled flight test. Not just flying it around and saying "it flies better".
I do not know which wing is better and frankly I do not believe anyone else does either. It is just another Alaska "old wives tale" until properly tested.
My opinion only
Bill
Bill,
I flew a Super Cub with extended wings and droop tips, stock flaps and ailerons for several years at work. Floats much of the year, wheels the rest. Ran engine past tbo, and plane received a factory reman O-320. The next year, Maintenance had me bring it to ANC for recover in fall. Management wanted to get rid of the extended wings, and I didn’t argue, so a new set of wings were installed on the plane. To the best of my recollection, nothing else was done to the plane during recover. This was a 1969 plane, bought new by FWS and never wrecked.
I flew that plane, with stock wings, for about another year, mostly on floats.
There were two notable differences in that aircraft: First, it took a notably longer distance to get off the water, when heavy. The lake I operated off was narrow, so easy to see difference. No scientific tests done, but takeoff distance increased by over 100 feet, at least, and maybe more. Second, the airplane, with extended wings and original aileron location had very poor roll authority. I flew that thing in a lot of turbulence, and after a while, you realized the stick didn’t do much. With stock wings, roll authority was much better, very noticeable.
About the same time, a friend had his SC rebuilt, also on floats. His wings were extended, but ailerons were moved to the tips, and flaps extended. It too had an O-320. I flew that plane some, and it performed on takeoff very close to the plane I flew when it had long wings. But, and this was a big but, it had roll control. I was wishing we’d kept the long wings and done the aileron/flap mods.
Im not a test pilot, by any stretch of the imagination, but I flew that plane, day to day, working it, in all sorts of loads and missions, with a lot of low level maneuvering flight. I much preferred flying the stock wing to the long wings, with stock ailerons, even though takeoff performance clearly suffered. At the time, we were operating these aircraft as “Public Aircraft”, and our outfit “suggested” using 2050 GW. In fact, we operated some heavier than that.
I never did a comparison of takeoff distances on wheels, but I don’t think the long wings really helped performance much on wheels. Roll authority still sucked, though.
Floatplane performance really benefits from two things: wing and thrust. Talk to anyone who’s flying a Skywagon with Wing X on floats.
Again, totally unscientific observations….take them for what they’re worth.
MTV