Anyone have experience with these? www.airtabs.com

Mac
'93 Breakaway

www.airtab.com .....sorry

Mac

I have looked at airtabs and read a lot about them and their claims.

HOWEVER: if they really were that good, one would think they would be on every trailer and truck on the road. In my extensive travels I rarely see them, when I do, I try to talk with the owners and most say there is almost no noticeable gains in mileage.

Some RV owners had said that they do make a difference in cross winds and seem more stable. To install as recommended on my RV it would cost about $250 for airtabs.

I do see lot of trailer tails (boat tails and other names)on trucks and the company that makes them (about $2000) claims 6% improvement in mileage. Along with trailer tails I see a lot of lower shields and wheel covers on the trucks and trailers.

HTH

I agree most of the evaluations are strictly anecdotal not scientific. Increased fuel economy increase seems marginal at best and handling changes are impacted by many factors. I'm wondering about improved radiator flow (for those of us with rear mounted radiators) even moderate change in backpressure reduction should have an impact. Oddly I have yet to see any report calling BS on the idea anecdotal or otherwise. So are any of us using them?

Mac
'93 Breakaway

I have gotten a trailer for all my electronic stuff that I have to lug around. I have pulled the trailer to Texas and back, for all purposes, there was no significant change in mileage.

I did a video camera recording behind the trailer to watch the rain and the pattern of air disturbance and can see issues that could cause some resistance particularly when driving over 65 MPH.

I just ordered enough airtabs for trailer and I will see how this effects the towing. If it does help, I may order more for the back of the RV. I have a trip to Arkansas in late May.

I have a full set of yarn tufts that I will add to the back of the trailer and the RV to watch the air disturbance. I already have a video of tufts on the back of the RV only that I made a few years back while trying to reduce the operating temperatures so I do have a reference point.

My server is back up now so I should be able to post pictures later.

Ran across this SAE Paper -
http://papers.sae.org/2013-01-2458/
Click on the right box and you can see the 1st 5 pages of this report. You can buy it for $26, or if you have a friend that is a SAE Member, he can get it cheaper.
Swirl ON! Lou FMC#120

Air tabs are on the trailer and upper half of the Breakaway. There is really no flat surface to mount them on the lower half but there are grills and other airflow disturbances that probably render the effect of the air tabs useless anyway.

Will be interesting. More later

Finally got my server back up:

Pictures of airtabs on the Breakaway and the trailer.

After 2000 miles with the trailer, this time with the air tabs, there were changes.

The most noticable improvement was the response of the rig (Breakaway & trailer) to wind gusty conditions and also when meeting, overtaking, being over taken by trucks. Buffeting was greatly reduced.

The rear of the Breakaway and trailer stayed much cleaner.

I can not evaluate any effect on engine cooling or do any reasonable comparison of MPG as I have been having boost loss issues so any data I have for this trip would not be a good comparison to the previous trip. if I can locate the source of the boost troubles before return maybe I can get some meaningful MPG data.

Will be in the Memphis area tomorrow and will have 3 days to play before I go to work at Blytheville.