Badland Part 103 Pilots and Builders Forum

The pictures don't seem to show much progress, but they represent many hours of work.

(1) Starboard side with about 3 auto-body putty applications and MUCH sanding to the cheek and ear. With this fitting, it appears that most of my "ear work" will get trimmed off, mostly because of better placement of the exhaust and carb cut-outs.


(2) The "patch pattern" that will get glassed on the inside of the cowl for the carb/air-filter mount. I wrapped the throat of the carb with some scrap rubber to enlarge the size of the cut-out so that I can get to the ring-clamp that secures the air-filter to the carb. Lots of glassing on the inside and cosmetic work on the outside yet, but this positions the pattern well. The same will have to be done for the remaining exhaust system cut-outs.


(3) Port side fitting.


(3) Looks fairly good. I hope once I fine tune the exhaust system cut-outs it will look even better.


Still LOTS of fitting and sanding left to do. Slow work having to wait several hours between finish/sanding operations for the body putty to dry.

Looks great Kurt. That first pic nicely highlights the windscreen rake. I really like it. It also looks like none of the engine parts protrude enough to make removing the cowl an issue.

With all the work you are doing and what I am seeing so far, you are likely going to have one of the cleanest cowls around. It might actually inspire me to order one for mine.

Low profile air-filter is a slight problem. Odd sizes between stock filter rubber mount diameters and the Polini carb throat diameter. I got some 1/8" rubber gasket material and made an adapter "roll" that secures to the throat and protrudes through the hole enough to access the circular pipe clamp so that I can remove the filter and kinda stretch the cowl enough to get it over the rubber adapter to remove the cowl to check coolant levels, etc. Will try to post pictures later.

I just finished putting the #8 wood screws into the butt ribs and the #8 screws into the nutserts in the l_angle at the rear of the cabin. I did some slight trimming of the aft ends of the polycarbonate to assure friction-less mating of the spar rib to the butt rib.

I am thinking of adding about 6 Tinnerman nuts to the bottom of the windscreen to mate with the cowling. I hope to get to that as soon as I do more fitting/mounting/cosmetic work.

You might find that you wont need to mare the bottom of the windscreen to the cowl. If they fit snugly there shouldn't be any room for play "at speed". I would be reluctant to add more fasteners than is necessary as it makes maintenance more tedious.

You could always add them after a test flight if you need to.