As stated elsewhere, a series of tests were conducted to determine the effectiveness of various modifications to a Cherokee 140. These tests took about 90 hours of flying, and at certain points, were observed and reported on by writers from the following publications:
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The plane, with no mods had a max cruise of 128 mph, a high altitude cruise of 118 mph at 10,000 feet, and climbed from 1000 feet to 8500 ft in 23 minutes.As returned to its owner, Jim Rhoads of Wabash Indiana, the max cruise had increased to between 149 and 153 mph, the high altitude cruise was 147 mph, and the time to climb was reduced from 23 minutes to 14 minutes.All of these numbers were subject to some variation due to atmospheric conditions, but can be considered accurate to plus or minus 2 mph. Time to climb varied by about one minute from test to test under similar conditions.Since the tests occupy a whole book full of data, I will try to draw useful conclusions from them. Should you want to draw your own conclusions, the spreadsheet is available on this website, and the video tapes can be inspected too.
