flying with cowling removed
 

I was wondering if I would be able to fly my thunder tiger trainer with the cowling removed. It becomes a pain to take it on and off when you need to work on something and also if it was removed I would be able to attach my engine with nuts and bolts instead of self tapping screws.

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

You will be able to fly your plane just fine. It just won't look as purty.

DaveB

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

Ditto, go 4 it.

Just make sure it balances without the cowl

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

thats some good news thanks.

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

With a new plane I put the cowl on it to take pictures before it flies. Then I take the cowl off make sure it flies good, make adjustments on the motor, etc. When it is all up and running good, then I put the cowl back on.

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

every cowl I've had on a plane is so light there is no way it is going to affect balance, I wouldn't even bother checking CG with it off, assuming it was on when you first checked anyway. the cowl is fairly close to the balance point also, at least compared to the tail end.

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

I say with the trainer that you won't have a problem.
However I have seen a plane at my field that the owner was having trouble with the engine overheating. He decided to fly without the cowling to see if its an airflow problem. This particular plane had a decent sized frontal area. Anyway to cut a long story short he lost control after take off and destroyed the model. He said the elevator control felt "weak and sloppy" We went over the model and could not find anything wrong. All servo's worked correctly and the control linkages were still intact. We could only suspect that having the cowling removed disturbed the airflow over the elevator enough to significantly effect control.
Not trying to scare you but do keep it in mind.

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

Chances are real good that he was tail heavy. I have seen this happen with larger models (33% and 25%). The larger the cowl, the more likely it'll change the CG.

AS Minn stated, "Just make sure it balances without the cowl."

RE: flying with cowling removed
 

On the TT trainer just take it off!!
I re-maidenned my Skyvista about three weeks ago(now ti will belong to my son:)) and was flying it wothout cowling since u havent had it painted yet.
Saturday I put it on and we went flying yesterday .. noo problems!!!
In most trainers the cowling is either plastic or fiberglass reinforced plastic very light weight it would not affect the CG considewrably if anything. On a bigger heavier model YES recheck the CG.. a friend has a 1/3 scale sopwith pup.. the xowling on that puppy :D is about 1 lb!!!
For your trainer ot won't mess anything (or rather the plane won't miss it ;)