Air Tabs?

[TomP]

Anyone have any experience using 'air tabs' on their rig?

I heard from a follow rver that they help with stability in the wind and make a very slight improvement in MPG.

This is a photo example I saw on rv.net if you aren't familiar with them:
https://www.rv.net/Forum/index.cfm/fuse ... 051558.cfm

Or you can google it for details.

Thanks

[bill crommett]

It looks like it would cause the RV some minor cleaning problems. Just like any other surface embellishment. No problem if you like power-washing.

[Vlamgat]

I have them on my trailer and they make a significant and noticeable difference. They are well proven on the Road Trains in Australia from whence they originate.

[Ray]

Hey, Vlamgat

What is the significant and noticeable difference?

[Vlamgat]

Large reduction in the effect of 18 wheel pressure wave; less cross wind push; consistently improved fuel consumption about 1 mpg over 6 routes that I tow regularly.

[Ray]

Thats very interesting - all of that would be well worth it

I am going to do more checking on them

[TomP]

Just following up on my own post about air tabs from a while back.

I took a 2200 mile round trip from Texas to Des Moines and back with some excursions (Went to Humbolt).

We averaged 8.55 MPG. This is the most I have every seen on an extended trip. This included pulling a toad for the first time. We keep the speeds around 60-65mph. Not enough data from previous trips without the air tabs to know what the difference would have been in MPG but it could be a correlation.

As far as cross winds and stability, the biggest difference i noticed was when large vehicles (semis, large class a's) passed us from the other direction on one lane highways. This resulted in very little bow wave action on our RV which was definitely not the case without the tabs. In situations when we were over taken and passed from behind on interstates, it was slightly better with the tabs.

My 2 cents.

[Vlamgat]

I noticed the same lack of push from passing vehicles once I installed the tabs.

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

Are there instructions on best placement? The BF's broad radius corners make me wonder if there aren't unique concerns about airflow and proper positioning. Over the last year there has been quite a few new Youtube videos. The Air Tab company's videos answer some questions. The end user vids show a lot of unanticipated unique placement issues. Any BF pictures yet? - Mike

[Roger]

Without wind tunnel testing, It's all guesswork. Being humans, whenever we make an "improvement"
we tend to see an improvement even if it's imaginary. It's called the placebo effect.

[TomP]

Agreed. without a true baseline and a controlled environment, any results are always non-scientific. I certainly wouldn't run out and buy these looking for a MPG increase but the stability issues were certainly notable and that seems to be a trend with all the user feedbacks I have seen before and after.

Ultimately, it was an experiment for me and I thought I would share the results and my opinion of it.

Grain of salt.


As far as placement of the tabs, I got some good info from other rv websites. Just google around and you will get the idea.