Those who say you can simply slip it and get the same effect as a flap or belly board are missing the point, and likely don't have either one to compare with. All three methods are helpful, however. The beauty of the flaps on N891JF is that they are huge "split" flaps, famous for good lift and lots of drag as well. See the bottom end of http://www.n56ml.com/owings.html for more on those big flaps. Belly boards are far easier to implement though, especially if the plane is already built, and do a pretty good job slowing the plane down...
Mark Langford, Harvest, AL ------------------------- I have to agree with Mark here. I was one of those that poo-pooed installing flaps and figured I could do anything with a slip that others could with drag producing devices... Until one day when I nearly tore up my KR when I dropped over a tall tree onto a short runway and watched half of the runway go sailing underneath me while I wrestled the plane onto the ground. The rest of the landing was a brake smoking tire bawling event with me just barely getting stopped by the end of the runway. Shortly after that event, I decided to retrofit flaps to my KR. I flew my KR 500 hrs before I retrofitted flaps to it. I found that the more I worked on cleaning up aerodynamics, the more difficult my plane was becoming on landing. Adding deployable drag, as well as some other handling improvements significantly improved my short field and cross wind capabilities with the plane, which had the side benefit of making my KR much more useful as I knew I was much capable with the aircraft in more challenging conditions. Since I added the flaps some 600 hours ago, I haven't landed without them except for the occasional proficiency landing. FWIW, I didn't think adding flaps to the plane was particularly difficult or challenging, but my plane is a bit different from most. See <http://jeffsplanes.com/KR/Flaps.html> for flap details. -Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM
