Great photos, thanks Doug.
Great photos, thanks Doug.
Jim Ott
Portland, OR
Kitfox SS7 flying
Rotax 912ULS
Thanks so much for the pictures. I'm going to head to the aviation dept at Home depot for some foam material
I do try to dress as warm as possible but anything I can do to cut down on the incoming air will help. Am making boots for the control sticks and am working on better latches to completely close the doors. My airplane is really too drafty to fly when it gets below 35 degrees or I'm just getting too old to tolerate it
I'm going to keep working on my plane to get it warmer in the winter and I sure appreciate all the help.
Thanks
Rodney
I am wondering why you have an air problem with your doors leaking air. I just finished setting the door frames and attaching the acrylic, the acrylic seemed to fit perfectly into the door frame. I have not installed the latch yet as I was looking into a mechanism that will latch at both front and back of the door.
Just curious.
Hi Jim
I Think it is good idea to have both front and back catches especially on the passenger door.
I notice some of my wider passengers tend to squeeze the front with hips or legs and allows cold air to scoop in. I added a small safety pin in this area that must be removed before the door will open. Simple but effective effective.
Cheers Don
Do you have of your oil cooler shutter? Was it installed onthe front side or aft?
I used to work on Boeing 737s and we used some very light weight insulation called oracoat. It is think silver mylar, and thin 1" thick fireproof insulation like spun glass. YOu make up these blanket with the mylar on each side and seal the edges with silver mylar tape. These blankets are very durable and provide excellent insulation. I bought some and used some of the scraps from work and insulated the entire cabin on my Cessna170. It was toasty warm at -20(f) but an added side benefit was it made the inside of the cabin much much quieter .It takes a little while to make up all the little angles of the different blankets but it is worth it. They are easy to clean if you get oil or dirt on them and they are very durable...They are extremely light in weight.
The reason there is leakage is that the only latch is towards the front of the door so it is easy for the door to get pushed out, back by your elbow. In fact it seems like there is a slight suction from the airflow pulling the door out. My doors at least need two or maybe three latches to really close as completely as they can.
May be just something with my airplane, but I do need to fix it. Before I got my Fox I was thinking of building a Zenith 750. Those guys have developed some neat ways to build a locking system that employees three latches. Will probably adapt their design to my doors. They had to develop a good system because they had real bubble doors that were getting ripped off the airplane in flight.
I do have thermostats on both the oil and glycol systems. Sure helps to warm up faster in cold weather
Rodney
Last edited by Rodney; 01-12-2018 at 09:24 PM. Reason: Added information