"Here’s where you want VGs ... short final into Bold Strip, Eklutna Lake, Alaska," wrote Pete Brown, whose Cessna 170 is VG equipped.

by Rick Durden

For any owner locked into the never-ending quest to make an airplane go faster, stall slower, handle better and maybe hum patriotic songs, there’s no shortage of ads for performance enhancing modifications. Churning through the chaff seeking a kernel of value, we see fairly amazing claims for vortex generators—or VGs as the more hip are inclined to say. On ramps everywhere, we see airplanes with little angular bits of metal protruding from wing surfaces, the underside of horizontal stabilizers and vertical fins, like some weird form of aeronautical acne. We recently set out to find out if VGs really do deliver as the manufacturers claim. We flew a…