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Now I just need to plumb some air into there. I'm working on my inlet. Here it is with a hole in the middle and rough cut on the bandsaw:


Poor man's lathe:


Sanded into a cone:


Some more tweaking and a quick fitup:

Inlet glassed up:


With the tube in place:

I bonded my inlet in place. I laid some plies from the inside of the inlet to the inside of the cowl.


Next I scuffed up the tube, glued it in place, and added some plies to fasten it securely to the cowl.


Front view. I propped the cowl up higher and cleaned up the resin so as to not bond the inlet to the work table.

Looks pretty cool!

I see we have very similar lathes.

Ready for test. I'll do the paint and bodywork if it works good.

Bryan -

I'm a bit new to this glass thing. Is that insulation foam you are using for the shape and then glassing over?

Thanks,

Greg.

Weatherpilot wrote:Bryan -

I'm a bit new to this glass thing. Is that insulation foam you are using for the shape and then glassing over?

Thanks,

Greg.

Yes, it's what I had laying around. We actually built the hovercraft out of the same foam but with a thicker sheet.

Flew 0.6 this morning. On takeoff at full rich the EGT went to 1415F, so I need to tweak the needle rich. It took about 1000' of climb to drop below 1400. It says I am getting more and denser air to the engine, which is a good thing. I didn't really need to lean in the climb until 4000'. I was cruising around at 110kias and it was happy. In a 130kt descent it was happy. It was pretty much happy everywhere. Engine temps were good but it was in the mid-30s. I actually had to turn my cabin heat down a little bit. My oil temperature was about 190F.

Way to go Bryan -

Keeping the"experiment" in experimental aviation...


Greg.

Thanks Greg!

A bunch of sanding done, some more to go yet. Will probably fly it again with the tweaked needle position before I complete the aesthetics.