Hi Guys,

I’m back from my long weekend in Charleston, SC visiting Nick Ugolini to pick up my backup Silver Bullet prop and prop balancer.  Unfortunately Nick’s plane was down for engine maintenance prior to him selling it so I wasn’t able to do any transition training in his Cozy. 

This coming week my major goal is to glass up (CF) the interfacing left & right sides between top & bottom cowlings.  Once these tasks are completed then the optimized install of the exhaust pipes will begin.  In addition and concurrent to working the exhaust pipes: since the weather is getting noticeably cooler and the days shorter, I have decided that I will start micro finishing the remainder of the plane and get this sucker painted. 

As I’ve stated before, I currently have a plan with my local race car exhaust-making dude, James, to finalize the exhaust pipes’ install configuration.  And I very much intend to optimize the exhaust pipe runs as they should be, in line with Mike Melvill’s exhaust pipe mods that brought the pipes inboard a bit closer to the spinner and focused on the very inboard section of the prop.  He notes all this in CP 83 and the operational improvements of these mods are impressive.  Since I have no choice but to rewicker the exhaust pipes anyway, I might as well make them as near-perfect as possible.

I’m still intent to focus solely on the plane for the next however long it takes to finish this bird… ASAP!