Why no cowl flaps??

Can one of you Tech oriented guys tell me why with the issues of overheating; That Cirrus elected not to put in Cowl flaps; Just those two cute holes in the front.??

I still love the bird; Only 3 weeks left

Rich Meyer

Can one of you Tech oriented guys tell me why with the issues of overheating; That Cirrus elected not to put in Cowl flaps; Just those two cute holes in the front.??

I still love the bird; Only 3 weeks left

Rich Meyer

The overheating in this case seems to be more of an internal issue rather than an external cooling problem. When an engine is too “hot” in the combustion chamber it is a problem most likely associated with mixture (thus the injector issue that has been mentioned) and adding a even a bunch more external cooling will not fix it.

Cowl flaps are used to cut down excessive cooling air flow at higher speeds and at the same time help reduce external drag. You can however find a good comprimise airflow with a fixed opening and thus eliminate the cost, weight(small) and complexity of cowl flaps. If memory serves me the Piper Malibu does not use cowl flaps either and is an even higher power/speed aircraft.

The end result in this case is that cowl flaps would not have fixed the current problem.

That’s my final answer. (without getting into alot of mass flow and temperature gradient gobbledy-gook)

I welcome other comments on this, especially conflicting ones!