In article ,
Tedstriker wrote:


You could also go with a flat belly pod, like on some Caravans. Basically,
just a taper on front, and back, with flat between. Curved corners, a
door(s) on the side. Easily done with fiberglass with some 1/2" foam for
the core, with some blocks in the corners to give some room to radius the
outside corners. Easy shape to make, lots more storage space than a bomb,
and less wind resistance, I would think.

One thing I wonder about is the exhaust.
A center mounted bomb pod would be between my exhaust pipes, but a
rectangular pod would be hit on both corners by engine exhaust. I
wonder if the heat would eat through the fiberglass?

I have a pod on my Cessna 206. It comes to a point on the front, but
the sides and bottom are all flat sheets and the corners have very
little radius, maybe 1 inch. It wraps up the side of the fuselage about
4 inches, so the bottom is actually flatter than the original. It is
less than 8 inches behind the exhaust. There is no problem with heat,
but when you fly in the rain, the lead in the exhaust mixes with the
steam coming through the cowling and you end up with two lead streaks a
foot wide on the bottom. It is hard to scrub off. It does affect the
air flow out of the cowl flaps and a two inch extension of cowl flap
travel is required.