11.1.4 Lower Cowling to Wing Flanges

This entry is part 36 of 39 in the series 07 - Landing Gear

Malcolm has a chain hoist so we don’t need a bunch of people to flip the plane. It also makes for some very interesting photo op’s.

Ready for lift-off

Coming back down.

Back to upside down.

Something I never got to. Upside down with both wings on.

Malcolm says now is a good time to start fitting the engine cowling. If I had to guess, it would have taken me weeks to do this. But when you’ve done it dozens of times, it’s easy AND fast… With one minor exception. For some reason, My upper cowling didn’t have a flange. The flange is a lip that is created when the cowling is made. This flange is used during the initial mounting to hold the upper and lower cowls together. So we had to make some temporary flanges.

Lower cowl in place.

Here you can see where the cowl is cut for the trailing edge of the wing.

Lower cowl cleco’d to the fuselage.

Upper cowl mounted. You can see the “temporary” flange on the upper cowl (small white tabs where the clecos are).

One day, there’ll be an engine in there (the middle opening is where the prop will attach and the two small holes are cooling outlets).

The two cowling halves get joined together. Here you can see the layups that make the two halves one.

Here’s the other side.

Once the inside layups cure, the flanges are cut away and the outside gets a layup.

When the outside layups cure, the one-piece cowl is made into two pieces. A line is drawn from the trailing edge of the wing and then the cut is made.

The lower cowling cut away and removed.

Now it’s time to make the mounting flanges where the cowl will attach to the wing root.

First the lower skin of the wing needs to be trimmed back. Masking tape is used to help follow the lines.

After the cut.

The lower cowl is remounted and some tape is used to hold the upper and lower halves together.