BUILDING THE REBEL FOUR DOOR METAL COWLING

I like the looks of the Piper style nosebowl & cowling. Sure, the Murphy composite 'Speed Cowl' for the Rebel looks sexy and fast, but if I wanted sexy and fast I'd be building a Lancair.

As I approached the point in this project of building the cowling, I contacted (then) Brian Godden at Murphy Tech Support. He graciously offered to send me a copy of their Lycoming Engine Mounting manual which not only details the installation of the Lycoming in the Rebel, but details the building of a two door metal cowling for the Rebel as well.

I wanted to build the four door version of this cowling as popularized by Wayne O'shea of Irish Field Aviation, www.irishfield.on.ca. This cowling is designed so that all four doors can be opened quickly and easily providing tremendous access to the engine compartment.

I read the procedure for building Murphy's two door metal cowling to get the basic idea of it's construction details. I modified the construction in accordance with Wayne's photographs of his four door cowling, and added in a modification or two of my own for my specific engine configuration.

I have tried to detail the construction of my cowling in the following photos. As you click on the thumbnail photos, you will find many of the full size photos contain a narrative specific to that photo.

My first flight was in June 2007. I currently (11/07) have 44 hours in my Rebel with no indication of high oil, cht, or egt temperatures. If anything these temperatures seem to run slightly cooler than I anticipated.

Roger Hoffman
Eugene, OR USA!