Cowling intake bow - recommendations for builders

[Paul Z]

I had a bow in my air intake. It made it extremely difficult to put the lower cowling on by myself. I didn't have any thin sheet metal to make an angle to fiberglass in place to remove the bow. At first I tried a 3/4 inch wide strip of 1/4 inch plywood bonded in place with epoxy along with 4 rivets. I worked well but the wood strip was too close to the exhaust, a fire hazard. I got an arrow shaft cut the point, & the feathers off, ground it flat on one side, and bonded it adjacent to the board, then removed the plywood. The arrow shaft works great. Just a suggestion for builders.

[SkyPirate]

that sir..deserves a big

[Paul Z]

One less arrow the deer need to be concerned with!

[DesertFox4]

One less arrow the deer need to be concerned with!

Depends on how low you fly near sunset Paul.
Innovative and light weight. 2 bonus points for that.

[War Eagle]

I used a small aluminum 'C' channel that I bonded and riveted in place.

I did this on the NACA duct as well as the rear part of the bottom cowling.

[Dave S]

I did not have any problem with the top edge of the NACA duct bowing near the radiator top; however, I did get a lot of flex (which you could not see from the pilot's seat - others let me know) on the bottom lip of the cowl.....did a strip of aluminum similar to War Eagle's installation.

Although not related to any observed flex, I did reinforce the lower lip of the NACA intake with a folded piece of aluminum - mainly for impact resistance...I have managed to off a couple of tweety birds unintentionally...one chipped the paint on the cowl. you'd think they could get out of the way of a slow moving kitfox landing

See attached photo for lower NACA lip reinforcement

Dave S
KF 7 Trigear
912ULS Warp Drive