Kim, >From what I've heard, the Kinney wheelpants are mostly cosmetic. Kinney didn't have the opportunity to do wind tunnel testing and tweaking of the design and that was long before desktop aerodynamic software.
If someone is ambitious, aerodynamically designed wheelpants would probably make a significant difference and might sell well. The Kinney wheel pants do look nice but don't help significantly in speed or fuel consumption and they do add weight. I'd pass on them. (For a worthwhile improvement, if you're doing wing work, would be to move the landing lights into the wings and make the wheel strut fairings fully streamlined. I really like having one light on each side. I was in a tower watching the inbound plane with both lights on and every motion was telegraphed wonderfully. Good for safety.) Ed
