Hello Fran and all,
I installed "Ultimate Ventilators" below my panel in N245E where the Europa
supplied NACA vents would normally go. I love 'em! You get a nice blast of air
from them both on the ground and in the air. I also have 3 "eyeball" vents
installed in my overhead panel which are fed from a NACA vent installed on
the right side of the vertical fin. The eyeball vents work very well at flight
speeds, but don't offer much on the ground. Well worth the effort for cooling
things off in flight here in the SE USA, though.
I used one of these _http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5228&cs=1_
(http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5228&cs=1) for my return air vent. I
used the oval shaped one shown on this page. Mine is mounted in the lower part
of the "D" panel. It looks nice, too.
FWIW, LS, a major German glider manufacturer, recently released a return air
modification designed to be used on their gliders that adds 2 full
(measured) glide points in performance. This increase in performance is
achieved
because of the drag reduction this mod provides by channeling the exiting
airflow
---From the cockpit through a low drag plenum. Haven't seen one yet, but one
of
our customers has ordered the mod and intends on having us install it once it
arrives. Once I figure out what they are doing I'll report it to the group.
My guess is they capture the air exiting the cockpit and duct it to exit the
fuselage at a point where the air is disturbed (like at the wing root or
near the tail wheel) This is a fairly common arrangement on racing sailplanes
for reducing the overall drag picture. Apparently, allowing the cockpit air to
find it's way out through the tail boom causes a lot of drag because of all
the various bulkheads and assorted hardware it must pass through along the
way.
Regarding what Bud said about the nose gear hole, I built a removable
fireproof bulkhead in my tunnel, aft of the nose gear hole, to allow the nose
gear
hole to be used for exit cooling flow as Bud describes. I'm running a Jabiru
3300 (not exactly known for being a cool running engine) and I've not had the
issues others have had with cooling the Jab. The main issues with cooling
I've had have had more to do with cooling balance from one side of the engine
to the other, but I've got that sorted out now thanks to a variety of changes
I've made in Jabiru's stock cooling set up. Even with the nose gear hole and
a fixed pitch prop, I, too, can rip along at 140+ kts if I choose to do so.
I sure hated to miss Rough River this year. I've been fighting a nasty ear
infection for the past week. I seem to be on the mend now (finally) and I hope
to be back in the air by the weekend.
Regards,
John Lawton
Whitwell, TN (TN89)
N245E - Flying
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