Brief Description: Fit front cowl halves together and installed quick
Carefully lined up the upper and lower front cowl haves and used Masking tape to hold them together. Mark location of quick release screw closest to the prop by looking a pictures of Pipistrel aircraft online (and pictures of an alpha trainer that I took) and measuring the width of the flange and dividing in half. Marked the remaining 3 locations dividing by the distance from the prop side fitting to where the fitting that connected the cowl to the fuselage is will be located by 4. Drilled 3mm holes at the marks and then enlarged them to 6mm with a step drill. Used countersink bit turning by hand to slightly chamfer holes to remove burrs and prevent gelcoat from chipping. Separated the cowl haves, drill the hole on the lower cowl to 12mm with step drill bit. Used a 3/4" 100 degree counter sink bit to chamfer the hole on the lower cowl so the female portion of the quick release fitting was flush to the surface of the lower cowl flange. The counter sync work well until it became dull on the 5th or 6th hole. Then it started jumping and not creating a round hole so I switched to a round 3/4 grinding ball for my drill that I found a Lowes. At this diameter hole, it made a perfect 100 degree chamfer so I used it for all the remaining holes and to clean up the holes that were not quite round. Installed the female portion of the quick release screws in the lower cowl but did not Loctite them in case I need to remove them while working in the engine compartment. The male portion of the quick release screw was very tight in the 6mm holes I drilled so I used a round 1/4 inch file which was just a tiny bit bigger then 6mm. Spun the file into the hole and then the quick release screws fit perfectly (now that I think about it the quick release screws are from USA so are manufactured with English units. Should have used 3/8" and 1/4" drill sizes instead of the 6mm and 11.5 mm that Pipistrel recommended)
