Thorp Air Command - T18.net

In addition to the vent on the rear of the canopy for fresh air, I have an eyeball vent that I want to install on the inst panel. initially I was going with an intake at the front cowl opening, scat tubing through the lower cowl, firewall to the inst. panel.However, a friend of mine who has a Piper Pacer did the same routing and wound up with hot air blowing on his face.He is taking his intake air about 10 inches below the prop on the lower cowl, apparently he is picking up a lot of heat in the engine compartment. Any suggestions for the best installations would be appreciated.

lance38dt

I would recommend you stay away from bringing in freash air through the engine compartment. Bad stuff lurks there plus you are making another hole in the firewall. The best route is to pick up air from the area of the gap cover on the wings. It is outside the prop blast and you don't have to disconnect anything when you remove the cowl.

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Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL

These little howadoings are very effective. http://www.vansaircraft.com/cgi-bin/cat ... components (CA LV-3). Installed on each side of the fuselage under the windscreen, they provide alot of air to the cockpit.

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Scott Hinton
Elizabeth City, NC
N78WG

.... or... consider Vans Part Number "VENT SIDEWALL KIT" for the RV-10 rear seats. They weigh nothing, cost next to nothing, and are a thing of engineering beauty. Superb quality too.

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In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Thanks guys always good advice


lance38dt

Those little vents were designed by Dean Cochran, my friend & T-18 builder.

John Evens N71JE
Arvada, CO

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John Evens
Arvada, Colorado
T-18 N71JE (sold)
Kitfox 7 SS N27JE

Placing vents on the fuselage of a Thorp can be critical with the gill type Thorp cowl. You can end up with a year around heater. I take the fresh air from the wing gap area and pipe it to the ball vents on the dash, you need to close them off to fold a map and at altitude.