McFarlane uses a laser to score the Bi-Flex Cowl Saver material to approximately 40% of the strip width. This works well for assuring a great air seal when you have straight or minor cowl shape changes. However, where you have a curved baffle and cowl, you will get a better fit by cutting out curved pieces of Cowl Saver from a flat sheet and then custom scoring the Teflon on the outer edges for the flexibility you need. You can score Cowl Saver with a sharp razor blade or knife. The TOOL120 scoring tool makes several scores at once and is designed to prevent cutting too deep and damaging the fiberglass reinforcing in the center of the material. The job will go much faster with use of the tool. Even with the pre-scored Bi-Flex, you may find situations where some additional flexibility by custom scoring is helpful for the best possible fit. For more information, please read Customized Flexibility for Optimal Cooling.

There is no loss of performance for the listed applicable model propellers. We have seen some performance degradation on exotic high performance experimental applications where extreme prop speeds or extra wide propeller blades were involved. We have also seen some experimental use of PROP GUARD where there were performance increases when the PROP GUARD edge was pinked on the face (forward side) of the propeller. The zig-zag pattern of the pinked edge produces a vortices generation that helps hold the moving air to the propeller surface longer.

There is a certain size rock that will break through the PROP GUARD and damage the propeller. When this happens, the damage to the propeller will be much less than if PROP GUARD had not been there, as much of the rock’s energy is absorbed by failing the PROP GUARD.

We understand the fear of a fire in an aircraft is real and justified. We also understand people fear that a lithium battery will spontaneously self-combust with no warning and reason and catch everything near it on fire too.  We want to address this fear. The EarthX batteries are LFP chemistry, or lithium iron phosphate, the most abuse tolerant and requires a lot of energy to force them into thermal runaway. The term thermal runaway can mean different things and for a LFP battery, it does not mean a 3-foot-tall explosion of flames, it means it will produce a lot of smoke for about 10 minutes.  (It should be noted the type of chemistry that does cause a large fire ball is the most used cell in the world, a Lithium Cobalt cell. This is found in your cell phone, your tablet, your laptop, etc.  On a commercial flight, if you are traveling on a 737 with 204 person capacity, it would be typical to have around 300 of these batteries in the cabin with you as a reference point).

To cause a thermal runaway with the EarthX battery, many things in your aircraft, and you as a pilot, would have failed. First, your regulator would have to fail. Then your over voltage protection on your aircraft would have to fail. Then you as a pilot would have to fail and not turn your charging system off (alternator off) as you see the voltage and amps climb, destroying all your electronics on your panel and popping fuses everywhere in the process. If you did nothing but continued to fly, and if the batteries protection failed too or you exceeded the protection limits (over 100V), it takes about 7 minutes of this type of runaway energy to cause a thermal runaway with the battery. The FAA TSO certified approved battery, the ETX900-TSO,and the ETX900-VNT, are in a fireproof containment system (internally) and is a sealed battery that is vented overboard, so even in this catastrophic state, the smoke is pushed overboard and it is not a battery safety issue and it does not cause anything near it to heat or catch on fire either.  

As far as the fear of spontaneous self-combustion, the battery must be part of a catalyst situation for it to go into thermal runaway. It will not simply “combust” with no reactor.  The batteries have short circuit protection and a battery management system to prevent the use of the battery if it detects a fault. The Hundred series for aircraft also has a fault monitoring that would alert you if something was outside of normal with an LED light that will illuminate.  

In most cases, the multigrade oil will run cooler. For a hot-running engine, like turbocharged, high performance or aerobatic aircraft engines, this is good, but for a cool-running engine it can be a disadvantage. If the engine runs too cool, it can't boil off excess moisture and unburned fuel, so there can be a tendency to form acid buildup. For cooler-running engines, pilots should use a winterizing kit, or check with their mechanics on how to keep oil temperature up.

Yes. The thickness, or viscosity, of an oil is directly affected by the temperature. Therefore, if an engine's oil temperature is increased, there will be a small, but proportional, drop in the oil pressure as well.

Yes, one kit will do both the left and right main landing gear doors.

A number of pilots have asked this question. The answer is a definite no. When Shell first started evaluating multigrade aviation piston-engine oils over 25 years ago, testing proved that multigrades formulated only with mineral base oils did not have adequate base oil viscosity (thickness) to properly lubricate all high load points in the engine. Then we tested and flight evaluated a formulation made with all-synthetic base oils.

This formulation had excellent antiwear characteristics in all tests run. However, in the flight evaluations, some engines would reach 600 to 900 hours, then lose oil consumption control and/or compression. When the engines were disassembled, we found that the piston rings were covered with a gray tacky substance that was primarily made up of the lead by-products of combustion (from the use of leaded aviation gasoline).

Although synthetics are excellent lubricants with good high temperature stability and very good low temperature flow characteristics, they are relatively poor solvents.

In an aircraft engine, the lead by-products of combustion must be dissolved by the base oil so they can be carried away from the ring belt area and removed from the engine when the oil is changed. Anticorrosion, antiwear AeroShell Oil W 15W-50 is formulated with 50% synthetic base oils to give it the excellent low temperature flow needed for quick lubrication during cold starting. 

The synthetic base oils, along with the unique antiwear additive system, give it antiwear protection unequaled by any other product on the market. In addition, its mineral base oils provide lead absorbency to guard against ring sticking and excessive sludge. The bottom line: The synthetic component of AeroShell Oil W 15W-50 will not harm your engine. Instead, it gives you the best of both oils.