Username Protected wrote:
Yep know it’s a Beech site but does anyone have experience with location to install a window mounted vent in the window on a Navion? Stock canopy with the rubber edge windows.
Plan is to head to OSH but after the last trip out with it in 2016 the wife has voiced I better get some airflow to the back seats. Weight and balance she is now stuck in the back because the kids got taller than us. Soon I’ll be in the back too.
There is a vent kit that has holes in the wing leading edge but the kit is not available right now. Simplest solution is to mount vents on the rear windows but I have found it tricky on low wing airplanes and I can get where there is suction instead of flow into the cabin.
The parts for the leading edge kit are pretty simple, and I think someone with sheet metal experience could make a set pretty easily. They were a factory item on the Rangemasters, and they flow an amazing amount of air. I would think that a field approval would be pretty easy since a bunch of airplanes came from the factory that way.
One caveat with the leading edge vents is to be careful landing on contaminated runways. I landing on a runway with large puddles once, and as I lowered the nose wheel into a puddle the “bow wave” off of the nose wheel hit the leading edge right at the vents. A geyser of cold water shot through each of the floor vents (between the front seater’s knees) and hit the ceiling. I was soaked in an instant.