Nov 09 2009

Extra Storage Area

I was out of town this weekend.  Flew up to PA to visit Mom and fix her TIVO.  The trip was GREAT and my average speed was about 190 mph.  Cant beat that!  The OAT got down to 27 F at 8000 ft and Tweety’s oil heat system worked great!   The toes got just a little cold, but I wasnt even wearing a jacket, just a light shirt.   The main problem is getting enough air to the nose of the plane from the heat core installed under the back seat.  I will probably rip out the SCAT tubing I used (hate the stuff) and make some fiberglass tubes to reduce the head loss in the system like in pPod. 

With pPods nose installed oil cooler and tight sealing of the nose area to reduce drafts, the plane should easily be good down to 10 F or less.  I have never flown below 15 F so we should be good for just about any flying.  Since the plane will be delivered this winter, I’ll have a chance to really test it out.

Today was spent mostly preparing for glassing.  I didn’t like the match up of lines on the STBD panel from the old to the new, so I added some glass to the existing installed arm rest.

Also glassed was the insulated cover cover for the wheel well.  Insulating the wheel well is very important to keep the heat in during the winter.  You can actually feel the heat being sucked out of you when you are straddling the WW on a very cold flight.  The WW is only 3 layers of glass so it does almost nothing to keep the heat where it belongs… in the plane.

The openings for the rear foot rest were cut and springs installed to let them ‘snap’ shut.  I tried sitting in the plane the the foot support is very good.   I really like the extra storage and may add them to Tweety.

There is actually quite a lot of storage space in them.  I plan to put the ELT in the smaller side.  I want a cover for the actuator so it cant be seen. 

All edges of the doors were filled with micro.  I think is a very easy step and makes the panels look much better.  It also keeps the foam on the panels from ripping off the glass over the years of abuse and allows for a slight rounding of the edges to soften them a bit.   A very important step in my book.

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