Power and Speed

by RJ Lint

Everything in life boils down to one of two things – more power or more speed. If you don’t believe me just ask, “Tim the Tool man Taylor”. Can you remember one show were Tim didn’t try to get more power or speed out of something. I can’t! Ask anyone who races cars, boats, bikes, or motorcycles and they’ll tell you the same thing; more speed or more power is where it’s at! But, how does that relate to Super Vikings?

Well, most Viking owners have owned other airplanes. It’s time to be honest; did you lust after and buy the Viking because it was slower? Because it had more cabin space? Because it had a smaller engine? NO! You bought it because it was fast and affordable. You wanted more speed, didn’t you!

Trust me, after owning a Viking for a while, one day you find yourself wanting to go just a wee bit faster. You’ll start looking at speed mods but will be hesitant to commit because everything you have done has been determined to be “wrong” by the geniuses of Viking ownership. Remember how you bought the noise-canceling headset, only to be told it was a mistake because you wouldn’t be able to hear any engine problems. Or, how about the GAMI injectors that you bought, only to find out that the ‘data” produced by the company was flawed and it was a waste of your money, your cylinders should have been the same temperatures all along.  Even more recently, the new fuel caps which were so easy to install, eliminating the ability of ever getting filled with jet A (resulting in a reduction in your insurance rate) where ineffective because the hole is too small to look in the tank. (Damn, I wish I won’t have bought that fuel computer that tells me how many gallons should have been pumped in the old bird.)

So, what do you do? Make the same mistake? Buy the speed mod and be chastised by the experts or take the chance that this time you might make the right decision and they will be supportive. I know what I’d do. I’d rush right down to Globe Fiberglass and buy the speed mod. Infact, that’s what I did last summer.

I called Globe and they quoted me the price and told me that it would be 7 to 10 days before they could ship the cowl. The whole contact was business like, friendly, and efficient. After a week, I called my friendly ATP at Valley Aviation on Martin Field in College Place, Washington who told me that he had a huge wooden box sitting in the middle of his hanger.

My annual was scheduled for 2 weeks later and I told Dave that I wanted to replace my Vacuum pump because it was getting old and install the cowl in the big wooden box during the annual week. Dave said he’d check the parts list to the contents of the box and be ready to go when I arrive. At this point, I started working on the wife about how bad of shape the lower cowl was in from a visual as well as structural nature. I even exposed her to the thought a new cowl might even make the plane a wee bit faster, helping us to avoid more bad weather. This is known as the  “safety factor.” It worked on getting the MX20 and new GPS60 and SL30, so, I thought why not give it a shot. After almost 4 days, the “Boss” was starting to crack, saying things like “you know what’s best” and “well, if we need it”, and  “if it will make us go faster and make you happy”.  I was elated that she appreciated my intelligence and agreed with me. Winning on this front allowed me to return to my primary objective, flying.

I returned to the skies to relax after the 4 days of manipulation and whining to my wife. The tower cleared me for take off, restricting me to at or below 1500 feet until clear the class d and c airspace. The power came up and we were off. The ceiling was at 2000 but I’d be below that for most of my trip. The gear was up and I started my turn to the left. I complete the turn and rolled out at the right heading and started to level off when I noticed something wrong. The instruments looked funny. What was it? The AI. That’s it. It is still showing a turn to the left. Why? Watch that altitude your 50 feet high. What’s wrong! No vacuum. No problem, I’ll pull on the back up vacuum by precise.  You know the system that all the Viking genius said wasn’t any good because “over the Rockies” you couldn’t pull enough vacuum to make it work. Well, this isn’t the “Rockies” it’s 500 above the deck, 500 feet below the ceiling and I’m screaming along at 172 knots across the ground. I have vacuum. If I add power to get vacuum I would bust the ceiling restriction or increase speed, if I reduce power I lose vacuum or altitude. My flight was going to be a short flight to start with, only 12 minutes scheduled. By the time I worked this all out, I was entering the pattern with a post-it on the AI to keep it out of my scan. Seeing the AI upside down was very disconcerting. Can you believe that two days before we were to leave to go get the annual done, I shear a vacuum pump drive? I called Dave and ask him if he had ordered the vacuum pump, yet. He hadn’t so I told him the story and ask him to hold off.

The next day, I got a new pump, cleaned all the lines, cleaned the brown stains off the left seat, removed the pump with 503 hours on it, installed the new pump and test flew it. The logbooks were then updated. I had learned a lesson and a new fear. Don’t loose a vacuum pump on take off in IFR weather …….because unless you have the electric back up system, you don’t have a back-up system that is there when you need it.

Saturday morning, we loaded the plane with all my wife’s craft supplies, garage sale items purchased for her mom, a case of wine for the week, a case of oil, misc filters, tools, and all our clothes for the week. We actually look forward to the plane annual since we stay with my wife’s mom and dad for the week. She gets to visit OLD friend and I get to work on the plane and come home to a cooked dinner each night. It’s the best vacation in the world.

On Monday, I arrive at the airport early and take the plane for a short run around the valley to warm up the engine. Upon landing we put her on the jacks, undo the upper cowl and lower cowl, and check the compression while the oil drains. While Dave checks the compression, I remove all the inspection plates. Dave then starts to do the visual inspection, viewing, squirted or adjusting as needed while I clean and gap the plugs and install new oil and filter.  The Mag’s are timed and gear retraction tests are made. This is all accomplished with constant interruption by the phone, and other pilots stopping by with problems and questions.

On Tuesday, Dave starts by telling me the Lord muffler mounts are bad and need to be replaced and a few other replacement items. He order the mounts and starts on the books while I replace all the inspection covers and open bits. The mounts are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday and all other supplies were either in stock or I had brought them with me. At the end of the day, we double check the Bellanca Annual checklist and declare the annual complete. Starting tomorrow, we install the cowl.

Wednesday morning, we started on the addition of the new cowl. The first step was to remove the cowl from the big wooden box:

This was followed by a bunch of OOOOOO’s and AH”SSSSSSSSSS. We then started following the directions provided, something I never do when working on my own. Read directions, you must be crazy. I can figure this out. Who needs stinking directions?

The second step was to add tape down the side of the engine compartment.

This allowed us to make the location of the attachment points. We did this with intersecting lines. Which you can see in the picture. This marking and drilling was the hardest part of entire job. The drilling part is hard because the cowl has a metal strip embedded in the lip area. See the next picture:

Next we strapped the top and bottom cowl on the plane and started drilling holes. Truly the scary part of the job.

When that was complete, we took the lower cowl into the paint shop for some final sanding and paint prep.

With the sanding complete, we started the spraying process. We took a plate off the side of the plane earlier in the week and had a paint shop match the color. We had to purchase quart but didn’t need over half the can.

We allowed the paint to cure for a whole day before we started to add the Baffle material and other hardware

Note: When you think you need only one more coat, stop. You are done.

It’s the last coat that gets all the runs and drops.

Starting to put baffling around the front of the cowl.

for some reason the left side of the cowl came with a nice heat shield installed

but the right side didn’t have any so we added a nice piece of shielding to that side.

We wouldn’t want the new paint to blister, now would we?

All the hardware was added to the cowl. Some of it was installed while

we had the cowl back on the plane but found that it was a lot easier to install

the stuff standing up rather than lying on our backs. When it was on the plane

we made a call to Globe to say we were confused about the looseness of one of the

attachments and thought we were missing some directions since we couldn’t see

how to attach bar that was attached to the nose door. They must have ha a good laugh in

Florida because the retraction process is so simple it’s almost ridiculous. As the

nose gear comes up it hits the bar, which goes up with the wheel and pulls the doors

closed with it. It the nose gear comes up the doors have no choice but to close. It almost

 totally error proof.

We reinstalled the cowl and attached the  activation arms to the side gear doors, adjusting them to completely close. We had to sand a little bit off the back of each of the side doors to get then to close completely.

Next we installed the nose bracket and actuation arm with the hose clamps provided.

Attached the other end of the activation bar from the bracket and drilled the holes in the gear door.

After a million gear retractions to get the doors fine tuned,  We  opened the hanger doors and took her for a flight.

There were a number of other things that took place during the installation. For instance, the muffler mounts were replaced, a starter on a 152 was replaced. All the cowl fasteners were removed in the old cowl and the top cowl. New ones were provided for the bottom and top but were not long enough for the top so they had to send use new ones. We went with oversized washers on all fittings. The air intake is now up on the side of the cowl so we had to removed the old scoop on the front of the engine and extra hose. There were a few small nuts and screws missing and few extra screws, washers, and nuts. I would have to say it was a very complete kit, easy to install, and when something was missing they sent it overnight.

The plane rolled into this hanger on Monday morning at 9 am and out of it on Friday at 3:45 with a completed annual and a new speed cowl. I flew it up and down the valley a couple of times that afternoon to see if it was truly faster. I wanted to see it was worth all the time, money, and effort. Upon landing, everyone on the field came running out to see if it was faster. All I could do is grin from ear to ear and say, did you see the way it climbed?  I have found no adverse effects of the cowl on handling, gear extension or during retraction.

Did I make a mistake? Is it any faster?  Well, I’m still grinning, today, 6 months later, plus, the plane looks proper, now that it has a nose gear door. It's always needed one. Now I'm working on the 160 mph gear door upgrade. It never ends! MORE POWER!