Thanks Colyn. 

 

You are correct.  No Dolly Partons, but even the more modest curvatures on the bottom of my cowl were eliminated when I built in the cowl flaps so that the bottom is nearly flat when the cowl flaps are closed.  With cowl flaps closed it still over cools (320F CHT at 75%) so I have more work to do reducing exit area.  Only minor exhaust deposits on the belly fortunately, and these probably arise from running so rich while breaking in the engine.

 

More photos to follow in a couple of days after I finish the initial flight testing. 

 

Today it was lots of landing practice in gusty winds with rain showers.  Weather was awful and I would get a lot of shaken martini action on down  wind.  The paint survives at 220 knots down low, but my tape-on stall strips disappeared.  Rain eats 200 MPH tape at 220 knots.  It got better about the time I was worn out and put it in the barn.  Natch.  Good practice, though. 

 

These things do not fly like C-182’s.  J

 

Fearless Fred

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Colyn Case at earthlink [mailto:colyncase@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, 19 April 2008 10:39 AM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: Re: [LML] First flight - at last