I started today with 3 layup goals… the first was the 4-ply BID layup in the front left corner to beef up and secure the hell hole perimeter flange at that point.  Much like I did on the right front corner, where I mounted the LIDAR radar altimeter,

The second layup was rather entailed.  Not necessarily in the layup itself, but in the prep of the flange area and hell hole sidewall beneath (as situated with the fuselage inverted, technically “above”) the flange.  With not much foam and sidewall real estate along that strip, I wanted to ensure I got every bit of strength possible out of the glass.  To achieve this I created a flox (ok, flocro) fillet along the edge farthest from the opening (just above the blue tape in center of pic below).  Finally, although I wanted this area to be strong as possible I still went with only 3 plies of BID (prepregged for layup) to create a flange with 5 plies total.

I should note the odd occasion that I did NOT peel ply this entire layup, but only a couple of inches at the aft corner where there will be some glass overlap from the aft flange layup.

I then got busy on the 3rd and final layup of the day: the NACA scoop that will be at the aft base of the RAM air scoop bump just forward of where the bottom cowl meets the bottom fuselage.

I had bought a plastic NACA scoop from ACS and attempted to tape it up to use it as a form.  I tried a number of times and just couldn’t get the tape to lay down into the corners as I wanted, so I punted on the tape and merely applied a couple of coats of car wax as a mold release.

I then laid in a ply of 3″ wide peel ply across the aft side and flanges before laying up 3 plies of glass: BID-UNI-BID.  I then repeated the peel ply application on the top side of the layup.

After it cured about 3/4 of the way, I tested the new glass NACA scoop for its releasability out of the mold.  It did not look promising.  Thus, I went ahead and pulled the NACA out of the mold and distorted it quite a bit while getting it out of the mold.

After finally getting it extracted, I cleaned up the plastic NACA scoop that I was using as a mold and then used it –as well as visually– to straighten out the quite distorted, partially-cured NACA scoop.

And here we have the NACA scoop even a few hours later, cured in its appropriate shape.

It may seem like only a few simple layups got accomplished, but each one of the last 2 layups took multiple hours each to prep, setup, cut glass, and layup.

Tomorrow I plan on continuing my hell hole flange layups as I transition into mounting the RAM air scoop.

I have a few items on my to-do list to accomplish before I flip the fuselage back over.  At first obviously it was all about getting the bottom strake skins laid up. Then it morphed into filling in the aft lower fuselage and hell hole, then the bottom cowling, now the hell hole hatch cover and ram air scoop.

Then came swapping out the button head screws on the landing brake for countersunk screws.  And a bit of work on the nose gear doors.  In addition, as you can see in the following pics I do need to do some tweaking on the landing light, and here specifically in the landing light pocket.

When I configured the landing light pocket in the nose I had kicked off the perimeter of the glass pad –the bare blue wing foam– to deal with later.  Well, now is later.  Clearly I don’t want to leave this bare foam in this state.

So I mixed up some micro and filled in the gaps along the edges of the nose landing light pocket. I’ll rough up the micro later and then paint it black as well.  I also need to swap out the 1/8″ thick landing light lens for a thinner 1/16″ lens, which I plan on doing as time permits.

I then spent nearly an hour cleaning out the blue wing foam from the RAM air scoop.  In addition to the wing foam, I removed the duct tape and peel ply as well.

Here’s a shot from the front opening, then the aft opening, of the RAM air scoop.

I then grabbed some shots of the RAM air scoop set near to its final mounting location.

I then took a bit of time to determine the quantity and spacing of the screw and CAMLOC points along the sides of the hell hole hatch cover.  Since I don’t plan on getting into the hell hole or pulling this hatch cover on a regular basis, I decided to go with only 4 CAMLOCs total and all the rest countersunk screws.  This was in part due to a good conversation with my buddy Brian Ashton that got me thinking that I don’t really need to waste a bunch CAMLOCs for this area down here.

Tomorrow will be July 4th, so I probably won’t get any work done on the bird.  But I plan on hitting it hot ‘n heavy come the 5th!

I started off today by pulling the peel ply and razor trimming the edges of the 4-ply BID layup on the front right corner flange of the hell hole.

My plan for the day was to start off by glassing the RAM air scoop, but curiousity got the best of me so I spent the first 45 minutes mounting the nose gear AEX LIDAR laser altimeter on the newly glassed flange.

I first determined the laser altimeter’s mounting position and then clamped the aluminum mounting bracket into place.

Since the laser altimeter is meant for a drone, the mounting screw holes on the bracket were only sized for 4-40 screws.  Wanting something a bit more robust I drilled the holes out to accept #8 screws.

I then drilled countersinks into the flange glass for the screws.  And also marked the position of the mounting bracket on the top of the flange.

After drilling out the lens holes and sanding them to a good diameter, I then mounted the LIDAR laser altimeter unit onto the hell hole perimeter flange.  I also connected up the wiring harness to ensure that the length was good.

Here we have a shot from above the inverted fuselage showing the newly mounted laser altimeter.

I then set the hell hole hatch cover back into place to get a view of the laser altimeter position through the somewhat clear perimeter flange of the cover. I’ll drill and shape the lens holes in the hell hole hatch cover flange once the RAM air scoop is mounted and glassed into position.

I then constructed a spit to both secure and rotate the taped-up RAM air scoop form to allow me the ability to much more easily glass it.

I then spent the next few hours laying up first a ply of BID (over peel ply), then multiple pieces of UNI for ply #2, and then a final ply of BID.

I then finished up the layup by peel plying the entire surface.

I then left the layup to cure overnight.

Today I started off by getting the last couple of button head screws pulled off of the landing brake and replaced with countersunk stainless steel screws.  Again, I’ll be pulling the landing brake off here shortly when I go to micro finish virtually the entire bottom of the airplane in prep for paint.

Besides the screw swap out on the landing brake, today was all about finalizing the shape of the belly RAM air scoop and getting it ready for glass.  I need a dogleg in the RAM air scoop to bring the air from the scoop –set at an appropriate angle to the oncoming air– down into the hell hole to mate up with the air entry duct of the RAM air can on the front face of the firewall (in the hell hole).  This is obvious in my previous pic from yesterday.

To be clear, I don’t know enough about airflow and fluid dynamics to know if this dogleg, bend, elbow, kink (whatever you want to call it) is a big no-no for what I’m trying to do here. I was discussing the possibility with Marco that since I had to have some curves designed into this RAM air scoop –and that they might negate the velocity-to-pressure recovery I was looking for to increase manifold pressure about 1″ via the RAM air can– I was highly considering scrapping all of it and simply putting a filter hanging off the fuel injection servo and calling it a day.   This was before I even cut the bottom of the cowling to allow the RAM air can to fit in place on the firewall.

Well, luckily I had that conversation with Marco, because he noted that Ary Glantz “does this for a living” as a NASA Engineer and recommended that I discuss it with him.  Great advice and that’s exactly what I did.  As I mentioned before, Ary was very helpful and the bottom line is that Ary’s observations were that the speeds we travel in these birds combined with the somewhat shallow angles of the bends in my scoop, he felt that the pressure drop would be negligible.  He also noted that without a lot of time and money it would be difficult to test by exactly what impact these curves would have and by how much.  Ary noted that even with the bends in the RAM air scoop the positive affects would outweigh any negligible losses.

So I pressed forward.  See?! I actually tried to eliminate a big mod and was talked out of doing so!! ha!

Of course my goal is to attempt to keep a constant increase in width as the scoop widens out as it progresses aft.  To create this first dogleg I simply cut the straight RAM air scoop foam at an angle and then rotated the aft side 180°.

In pondering how to secure the 2 pieces together, and not wanting to mess with micro cure times, I simply used a thin layer of pour foam to act as a glue.  I then mated the sides together and secured them with nails and toothpicks.

After the pour foam cured, I then cleaned off the excess foam.

Here’s a couple more shots of the initial dogleg in my RAM air scoop.

I then rounded the shape on the top side to eliminate the hard angled edge at the dogleg. My next step was to eliminate the negative side of that on the bottom of the dogleg, which of course meant adding in more material.  Again, this is in my attempt to keep the ever-widening angle of the scoop constant as the air flows aft.  Thus, whatever I shaved off the top then gets added back in on the bottom… roughly.

I poured some foam around the bottom half of the RAM air scoop dogleg junction.

And then, as carefully as possible, removed the majority of it to leave just enough to create a rounded curve –both top and bottom– of the dogleg.

I then taped up the RAM air scoop foam form with duct tape to act as a mold release when I glass it.

I then spent a good bit of time actually cutting the glass for the RAM air scoop. I had originally planned on simply using 3 plies of BID but after assessing my BID supply, and realizing that I will have to order yet even more (amazing how much you go through on these birds!) I decided –after finding a nice angled piece of UNI that covered half the scoop– to cobble together a UNI ply from scrap glass as the middle ply.

It was too late to kick off a multi-hour layup on the RAM air scoop, not even allowing for the time I would need to construct a spit much like my buddy Dave Berenholtz did when he glassed his RAM air scoop (thanks for the idea Dave!).

So I decided to narrow my scope and knock out a smaller piece of the puzzle.  I cleaned out the foam and glass under the flange on the right front (left as inverted) side of the hell hole.  I then prepped the foam strip with micro and created a drier micro fillet along the top corner before glassing in a 4-ply BID prepregged layup.  This glass will buttress up that flange and allow me to install the LIDAR laser altimeter that is in integral part of the new gear AEX system.

I then of course peel plied the layup and left it to cure overnight.

I started out today re-trimming and reshaping the inside surface of the hell hole hatch cover since I just wasn’t happy with the excessive (comparatively) thickness on the left side.  Here is the inside of the re-tweaked hell hole hatch cover ready for glass.

Since I needed to secure the hell hole hatch cover back in place as it cured to ensure the flanges match the fuselage/hell hole side flanges, before glassing the inside surface of the hell hole hatch cover I spent a bit of time dialing in the initial configuration of the RAM air scoop… again, employing some great advice by fellow builder, Ary Glantz.

I then set the hell hole hatch cover back in place for one last check before glassing the inside surface with 2 plies of BID: 1 ply to cover flange and foam, overlapping about an inch onto existing glass, and 1 ply primarily on the flanges overlapping a good inch + onto the first ply of BID [Note: paper towels at the corners are merely for contrast between cover and bottom fuselage].

I ran out to grab lunch to let the layup cure a bit and failed to get a shot of the layup before I set the glassed interior hell hole hatch cover in place on the hell hole hatch opening. I then taped and weighed the sides down to ensure they remained flat against the perimeter surface of the hatch opening.

I’ll make 2 points of note: First, I taped the perimeter of the opening first just to ensure I had no issues of the partially cured glass sticking or bonding to the hatch perimeter. Second, the tape and weights to pin down the flange edges on the hell hole hatch cover was as a result of my test fit above, where I observed that there were some minor gaps between cover flange and fuselage glass.  Clearly I wanted the flanges to cure as close to final position with the interfacing perimeter flange/glass to get the best seal and fit possible.

While the inside hell hole hatch cover layup cured I got to work on another task that I wanted to knock out while the bird was inverted: swapping out the landing brake’s ugly (and might I add, partially rusted) button head screws for stainless steel countersunk screws.

I first hooked up the battery and the throttle handle (where my landing brake switch resides) and opened the landing brake.  That was a “whew!” moment given it’s been years since I opened this thing.

Here are some shots of the ugly (IMO), protruding, button head screws.

And one more shot before I started swapping them out.  My preference for the stainless steel countersunk screws are the same hex-drive ones as Mike Melvill swapped over to on his bird for the majority of his external screws.  However, at only 5/8″ long they don’t get quite deep enough at some spots on the landing brake cover.  Good to know and I’ll order some longer ones if I can find them.

Here’s all but 2 of the button head screws swapped out for countersunk stainless steel screws on the landing brake.  I’ll note that I’m using temporary nuts here to secure the landing brake since I plan on removing it to sand down the interior for micro and paint.

A while later I pulled the hell hole hatch cover off the hell hole hatch.  I pulled the peel ply, razor trimmed the glass, and hit the edges with a sanding block.

The layup looked good, although I will note that the cover does feel a bit chunky… as in heavy.  Interestingly that earlier in the evening I was talking with my Long-EZ builder buddy, Brian Ashton, who happened to be extolling the virtues of carbon fiber, in his reiteration of how lightweight it is compared to E-glass. I’m guessing my external 3-ply BID flange around the perimeter of the cover cost me a good 3-4 ounces.   Hmmmmm . . . .

After cleaning it up, I then again set the hell hole hatch cover back in place on the hell hole hatch… the flanges fit a treat [Note again: paper towels at the corners are merely for contrast between cover and bottom fuselage].

Tomorrow I’ll press forward with my hell hole hatch and RAM air scoop shenanigans!

I started off this morning by pulling the bottom cowling off the bird, and then checked out my corner layups that will help seal up the corner gaps between cowling and fuselage flanges.

Here we have the added glass on the right side.

And the left side.

External shots of these gap-sealing corner layups:

I then got busy working on the hell hole hatch cover flanges. First I’d like to again reiterate that I’m adding flanges to the existing surface of the hell hole skin –on top of– versus using the existing skin to create the flange, which is the more common method of doing it.

I’ll note again that my reasons for doing this is that my hell hole surface in the gear leg area is slightly “lower” (as inverted) than it should be in comparison to the forward fuselage, so I’m using the flanges to add some depth/thickness to the cover to help in the fill of this area.

Secondly, it’s easier to create the flanges here by simply overlapping onto the surface of the hell hole skin.  It instantly creates not only the hatch cover flanges, but the existing hell hole/fuselage-side skin then becomes the mating flange and merely needs reinforcement plies on the inside to finalize the flange construction.

With the added hell hole hatch cover flanges cured for the aft edge and corners as well as the front corners, I then got busy working the side flanges.  I’ll further note that no more glass will be applied to the center front side of the hatch cover since the RAM air scoop will be integrated into this area and a fair amount of glass and foam will probably be removed before any glassing occurs to secure the RAM air scoop to the hatch cover.

In preparation for the laying up the side flanges, I first cut the remaining hell hole bottom skin/foam/glass along the front edge and both sides.  I then added tape to the sides where I would be adding the 3 ply flange layups.

Note, as you can see in the second pic, that the first 2 plies were laid up in between the existing flange plies at the front and aft side.  The 3rd ply then overlapped onto both the front and aft existing flange glass to interlock the flanges together.  To be clear, I laid down a piece of peel ply on the tape before laying up any glass.

After the side flanges’ BID was laid up, I then peel plied the top surface of these layups and left them to cure.

While the side flange layups were curing, and the hell hole was inaccessible to do any work, I decided to work on some other bottom-of-the-bird tasks that will need to be finished before I flip the bird back upright.

First up was the configuration of the nose gear doors’ spring attach that is not dialed in. One door leans inboard a bit when the gear is out.  It’s been this way since I first installed the gear doors, I had simply kicked that proverbial can down the road.  Well, now is the time I need to at least start working the nose gear doors spring configuration.

I found where my buddy Marco had made some spring mounting nubs to mount the spring on his gear doors, which are working and configured just fine.  I had been using nutplates “screwed” into the spring.  I figured if Marco’s setup was working, I would just copy what he did and all should work out.

Since this is a mockup of sorts, I grabbed a 1/2″ diameter piece of 6061 and lathed it down to 0.327″ OD to match the same ID of the spring.

I then drilled and tapped the center for 10-32 threads.  Each nub is about 1/2″ long.

I then threaded the nubs onto the side hardpoints specifically for securing the spring.  The spring appears to be a bit short, so I plan on making some more nubs with a shoulder to have something at each end of the spring to locate/secure it more inboard.  To be clear, this is an evaluation of this issue and I’ll continue to work it as time permits before flipping the bird back upright.

I ran a few errands in town to give the glassed hell hole hatch cover side flanges time to cure.  Upon returning back to the shop I then popped the hell hole hatch cover off the back of the bird for the first time.  The shot below gives you an idea of how much access I have to the hell hole (note the hatch hole is square… the camera angle makes it look skewed).

Here we have the hatch cover both with the peel ply and then after I pulled it.

I then quickly set the cover back in place on the hell hole just to double-check look and fit.

I then got busy determining and marking the cut lines to taper the hell hole hatch “floor” down for a good glass transition to the flanges.  As you can see, my pour foam for the bottom of the hell hole/fuselage was a bit thicker on one side.

I then took the hell hole hatch cover outside and started my massive surgery on it.

And got to this point.  I still wasn’t 100% happy with the interior surface contour of the inside hell hole hatch cover, so I decided not to glass it tonight and ponder on it a bit more and re-engage on it tomorrow.

With the hell hole hatch cover interior surface glass layup on hold until tomorrow, I then got busy digging out some of the side glass and foam for what will be the hell hole side flanges for securing the hatch cover in place.

At this point the main thing I wanted to confirm was that my identified location for the LIDAR laser altimeter was good and that the altimeter would –in fact– fit.  Here you can see that there is just enough room for it to fit in the front right corner.  Whew!

With that I called it a night and will hit it hard tomorrow!

I normally like to start out my build day by getting a glass layup in right out of the gate. Today though, since I knew I was going to be doing a bunch of assessing, planning, measuring and pondering on the hell hole hatch size and configuration –before any glass went down– I decided to knock out notching the bottom of the bottom cowling to allow the RAM air can to be fully seated into the hole on the firewall. Thus, no layups…

The first pic is my initial cut, and then after a few rounds of dialing it in, the last pic shows the RAM air can fully seated into the firewall hole, with cowling clearance all around the can.

Here’s an inside shot during this process.   Note the butterfly valve inside the RAM air can. When closed, air is drawn in through the reed (or flapper) valves on the side and through the filter around the inside of the can.  When the butterfly valve is open air comes straight in from the RAM air scoop and bypasses the filter.  In fact, the pressure from the RAM air pushes the reed valves closed from the inside of the RAM air can so no pressure is lost.

You may note the faint line on the bottom hell hole skin that is the outline of the hell hole hatch.  I’ll admit I’m sacrificing about an inch on the aft side of the hatch to allow for better elevation alignment between hatch cover flange and bulky plies of glass to make up the 1.6″ original stock cowling lip.

Moreover, to have more meat on the aft side of the hell hole hatch cover, I built yet another dam for some pour foam.

Which I used way too much of… oh, well.  It’s in and did the job.

Here’s a shot of the added pour foam and also of the hell hole hatch cover design.  Yes, it does look like a second landing brake (Marco!) but the “tab” at the front side is merely there to meld in with the RAM air scoop base.  Note the figure “8” or infinity sign at the right front corner is for the LIDAR laser altimeter used in the gear AEX system to signal the system when the plane is 380-400′ off the ground to automatically drop the front gear.

Now, the only time patience wins out with me is when it’s trumped by laziness. I wanted a way to glass the hell hole hatch cover without it being a major pain.

First off, since my hell hole area is a bit more depressed than it should be (I sanded a bit further down around and just inside the gear legs), I decided to go with an external flange –resting upon the existing skin– vs using the current glass as the flange.

Next, I decided to glass the external flange in 2 parts.  That way I don’t have to add any hot glue sticks [I’m tired of burning myself!] or anything else to maintain the hatch cover level with the surrounding aft bottom fuselage (hell hole) skin.

Thus, the lines in the first pic that are marked black are the initial cut lines and will get the first round of glass.  Round 2 will be the sides and the center forward “tab”.  Pic #2 has these lines cut, which I used both the Fein saw and a jig saw with a short bit.

I then taped up the forward corners and the aft edge/corners as a mold release on the fuselage side to allow the hell hole hatch cover flange glass to pop off.

The plan is to add 3 plies of BID here, overlapping at the corners, and then glass 2 plies of BID from the inside of the hatch cover onto the inside of these 3 plies of BID.  To facilitate these secondary layups I’m adding peel ply to the underside of the flange layups.  Here I’ve cut the peel ply … again, which will be only on the fuselage side where the flange will overhang.

I then laid up 3 plies of BID at the forward corners and along the aft edge/corners. Note that the last ply of BID leaves 3″ open on the outboard sides to allow for a 1 ply BID overlap when the 3 plies of BID get laid up on the sides.  Remember, 2 plies more will be added on the “underside” of the flange, so it should be plenty strong with a good amount of glass-to-glass bonding.

I then peel plied the top surface of these of layups.

While I had the Fein saw out for the initial perimeter cuts of the hell hole hatch, I decided to knock out extending the gap above the main landing gear.  Since the gear-to-fuselage junction will be covered with a fairing, I wanted plenty of clearance for the gear to keep it from slamming into the glassed fuselage sidewall in case I ever decide to a carrier landing, or two…. ya know, just for fun!

The left gear shows the markings I had on both sides, while the right gear gap has already been widened.

My final task of the evening was to close up some gaps on the cowling to mounting flange interface.  In the corners of the cowling where it meets the strake-fuselage corner flange, there was a good centimeter squared hole that need to be plugged.  I first applied tape to the corners of the bottom cowling, like such . . .

And then laid up 3 plies of BID at the corner flange overlapping onto the inside corners of the bottom cowling.

I left these layups to cure and called it a night.  Tomorrow I’ll continue on with creating the hell hole hatch and cover.

Today was yet another light build day.  I did get some research done on my RAM air scoop configuration, and talked to fellow builder Ary Glantz to get his NASA engineering expertise on the subject.  Bottom line is I’m moving forward with my original plan to install the RAM air scoop.

As for the actual build, I did pull the peel ply off the inside 1-ply layups that secure the armpit air intake scoops to the bottom cowling.  I also quickly hit the edges with a sanding block to knock down any potential finger slicers.

Here’s the cured and initially cleaned up inside layup on the left armpit air intake scoop.

And the right side . . .

Tomorrow I really do plan on putting in a good full day working on the hell hole hatch and cover.

I really haven’t got a lot of actual work completed over the last couple of days, between doing a fair bit of research on the RAM air scoop design and configuration, pondering the hell hole hatch cover construction, and having my little buddy hanging around for multiple hours both today and yesterday.

I was able to pull the peel ply off the glassed-in-place armpit air intake scoops and clean up those layups.  I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised at how nice the transitions are between scoop structure and the bottom cowling.  A little bit of finishing micro —compared to what I thought would be a required lot— and the transition and flow between them will be as if it’s one solid component, especially after paint.

My next task was to clean up the inside transition edges between the armpit scoops and the bottom cowling edge flanges.  There was a good bit of flox that had to be shaped and removed, as well as some edges from the cowling opening.

After a good cleanup and sanding, I then measured and cut plies of BID to secure the inside perimeter edge of the armpit scoops to the inside edge of the bottom cowling, overlapping a good 3/4″ to 1″ on both surfaces.

I started with flox to fill in any gaps and imperfections at the junctions, and then laid up the glass.  I of course followed this up by peel plying the layups.

It seems like these 1-ply layups should have been an easy quick kill, but start to finish from cleanup to final peel ply in place was about 4.5 hours….. yes, where does the time go?!

Tomorrow I plan on jumping on the hell hole hatch and cover construction, as well as getting the RAM air scoop installed.

I started out today spending about 30 minutes on each floxed-attached armpit air intake scoop to Dremel down and then sand the edges for a better transition between scoop edge glass and bottom cowl surface.

As you can see, I also re-drilled the pilot holes into the added glass on the wing cowl mounting flanges and re-installed the clecos.  Again, with the added plies of BID on the flanges the interfacing levels of wing and cowling surfaces are very acceptable to proceed with micro finishing for paint.  I will point out again as well that I’m leaving the aft 2 CAMLOC positions clecoed only until the upper cowling is fitted, mounted and integrated into place with the lower cowling.

I then proceeded to layup 2 plies of stepped BID around the perimeter edge of the armpit air intake scoops.  Along the tops and bottoms of each scoop the first ply of BID was 1.8″ wide, while the second and final ply was 1.1″ wide.  On the very aft half-circle shaped part of the scoop the first ply was 2″ wide while the second and final ply was 1.5″ wide.  I stepped these plies and made the first a little wider than probably needed just to help with the transition and flow between the scoops and cowling surfaces to better facilitate micro fill finishing.

Here are shots of the glassed scoops from the front side.

I left the scoops to cure for a few hours, and with using fast hardener they were well on their way to final cure when I pulled the bottom cowling off the plane.  I then pulled the protective tape from the inside edge of the cowling, at the corners.

I then checked out the freshly glassed 4-ply BID corner flanges.  Not bad at all, especially since these corners have been the problem children of this bottom cowling install!

I then trimmed and sanded these newly glassed flanges… again, more than acceptable in how they turned out.

With the added plies of BID in place and wing-to-cowl surface interface levels confirmed, I actually drilled out the hole for the #3 CAMLOC before removing the cowling.  I then drilled the flange side hole out one more step to 1/2″.  I then installed yet another Skybolt lightweight stainless steel CAMLOC receptacle onto the flange (screwdriver used as pointer).

After pulling all the protective tape and peel ply from the added 4-ply corner flanges, trimming the flanges and then installing the new #3 CAMLOC on the right side, I then reinstalled the bottom cowling to let the armpit air intakes’ securing BID cure with the cowling in its mounted position (just in case).

Note that here we have the #3 CAMLOC on the right side installed.  Interestingly, the CAMLOC studs required along the front edge of the cowling are all -3’s. Then along the sides I needed -4’s.  However, with the 2 added plies of BID at the #3 position, this CAMLOC stud length needed to be a -5.

Tomorrow I plan to glass 1 ply of BID to the inside edge of the air scoops overlapping onto the inside surface of the bottom cowling.  I also plan to mitigate (glass) the small corner air gaps between cowl and strake/fuselage corner.  After that, I’ll be cleared hot to start back to work on the hell hole hatch and cover, as well as the RAM air scoop configuration and install.