WONDERING IF ANYONE HAS HAD THE CHANCE TO CHECK PERFORMANCE OF A SPORTSMAN STOL VS VG'S. - ANY PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE. LOOKING TO PERHAPS ADD SOME STOL PERFORMANCE TO MY CESSNA 182H - WONDERING BIGGEST BANG FOR THE BUCK. THANKS !!
Go for the Sportsman, for the same money, you get a whole new airfoil. I have both the Sportsman, and vg. The reason for the vgs, was to keep airflow over the control surfaces at the extremely slow speeds that I use. Otherwise, they did not lower my stall speed anymore than I had with just the Edge cuff. I ran tests before and after. First I installed the Sportsman, flew and measured airspeed, then did the vgs, and repeated the speed tests. No difference, but because of a past experience of losing ailerone control when flying behind the "power curve" with a Horton cuff, I added the vgs.
vgs are effective, but not as effective as the leading edge cuff.