Comment

Comment by James Machin on June 18, 2020 at 6:29pm

I wouldn't recommend it.  Selecting the right wing incidence is a trade that the aircraft designer does very carefully juggling two conflicting requirements.  First of all you have to understand that the relative angle the wing fly's through the air is set completely by how much lift the wing is required to make at the speed the aircraft is flying.  With that said, it is the designers job to minimize the fuselage drag by making the fuselage fly as parallel to the wind as possible at cruise speed.  Conflicting with that requirement is the need to rotate the aircraft at takeoff to the required takeoff angle on the wing without touching the tail.  Reducing the incidence on the wing just makes the fuselage fly more nose down.  If the aircraft typically fly's many degrees nose up then you might reduce the drag a bit with the down side of potentially hitting the tail at takeoff or landing.  If it already fly's level in cruise it as good as its gonna get.

Zenith did reduce the incidence on the 650 relative to the 601 by one degree, evidently they had enough tail clearance and rotating the fuselage down by one degree improved the cockpit view.

Jim