Originally Posted by Shaun Evans

Hi,

So I had a little stroke of luck the other day! Went to the flying field to maiden this bird, and had two very nice flights, including one with my 12-year-old son on the cord. With the cowl on, the engine temps (at least according to telemetry) were 100 degrees hotter than the hottest run-up on the ground without the cowl. I was getting up to 355 in the air, which I think is too hot for the DLE 55RA.

The 'luck' part was that a week-long 3-D event had just closed down at the field and none other than Colton Clark was there. He and several others of the best RC pilots in the US were clapping for my maiden landing, so I went over and asked them about engine temps. Colton went over to my plane, got down on the ground and drew out his suggestions for cooling mods onto the cowl with a sharpie. I followed his suggestions exactly and now I'm getting temps that are only 20-25 degrees higher than without the cowl. Gotta love it when the champs and real pros 'give back.'