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Hi Guys,
The days of summer are over here in California and it went out with a big
blast with record setting temps of 114. It's a good thing the AC that I
installed back in June worked like a charm. So far I have flown all summer
with it including my trip to Oshkosh and back. What a lifesaver when its 90
and the humidity is 90%. I have flown it on days here in California when it
was 110 on the ground and the air temp at my altitude was 105. I did have
to turn the blower up to medium on that day though. The all up weight ran
about 37 lbs. I have 3 vents, one in the center and the two below the panel
in the stock location. If anyone is interested in details please email me.
The hardest part was getting the airflow for the condenser to work properly.
I had thought that a NACA style scoop would work on the belly off to the
side to get cool air would work along with an exit hole some 12 inches
behind that. That did not work. The strange thing was that the airflow
actually reversed even though I had a fan on the condenser. So what I ended
up doing was adding a P-51 style scoop. It is fairly small but it did
reduce the speed by 5 kts. So now my 207 kt cruise was down to 202. The
compressor only cost 1 kt. The scoop was 4 kts. So now that it is cool
again I will be back to the drawing board to figure out why the airflow
wants to reverse from those two points on the belly. All in all it has been
worth it. Being able to sit in comfort with the canopy closed from start up
to shut down has really increased my flying pleasure. If anyone has any
ideas for a cleaner scoop or a place to get air from without a penalty I
would be very interested in hearing from you.
Thank you,
Craig Schulze
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