Aircraft Aircraft Stepups

Speed Mods: Bucks for Knots

While experience has taught us that there's no free lunch in aviation, especially when speed is involved, we wanted to know if there were any ways to make our airplanes faster without having to spend cubic bucks. We surveyed the speed mod market-its vast-and found that while there are some high-dollar mods out there, it may be possible to up the cruise speed and climb rate of your airplane by 5 to 10 percent without going broke. Heres what we found.

Rick Durden
Verified

While experience has taught us that there’s no free lunch in aviation, especially when speed is involved, we wanted to know if there were any ways to make our airplanes faster without having to spend cubic bucks. We surveyed the speed mod market—it’s vast—and found that while there are some high-dollar mods out there, it may be possible to up the cruise speed and climb rate of your airplane by 5 to 10 percent without going broke. Here’s what we found.

LoPresti Aviation cowling mod for the Piper Arrow

Rick Durden

Senior Editor Rick Durden has written for Aviation Consumer since 1994 and specializes in aviation law. Rick is an active CFII and holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation. He is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. 1 & 2.