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Hello,

While my plane was being Annualled, I took some time to look around. Very enlightening! Does anyone know what the HUGE silicone flex pipe does right below the cowling vent hole. I thought it was to allow water in the nose wheel well to exit fast but when I look into the well from the ground, I see 0 vent. The pipe seems to go in a cavity ahead of the nose wheel well. My curiosity is tweaked...

Thanks.

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Its the air water separator duct. It holds the water when you take a bow wave over the nose while it drains into the nose landing gear box. The problem several have encountered is that when you take two waves in avery short time frame from each other this duct doesn't have time to drain completely so the wave goes into the air water separator hits the undrained water and backs up in to the airvents and sprays out all over you like splash mountain. Some call that a visceral feature, some are annoyed.

You might ask why do you make the hole going into nose gear box bigger to drain the water faster - Good question - If you make the hole bigger you lose airflow coming into the vents as it now wants to go out of the nose landing gear box as well (like you make a 3rd vent but out of the plane) so you can quickly diminish the airflow into the cabin. Which is miserable on those mid to hot days with the windows in.

Jon Karkow and I experimented on an R&D aircraft and designed a super simple solution that would both drain the water quickly but would also allow for all the to make into the vents. This design eliminated the double wave splash through the vents. It would have been pretty easy to incorporate into production but understandably the team back then (2016) was too swamped prepping to release the first Founders edition aircraft to production to get the design incorporated into production.

As Paul Harvey would say - "Now you know the rest of the story."

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Thanks Brett, What is that chamber called in front of the Nose-Wheel well? Why Am I unable to see an opening to it in the well?

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That's the air intake into the air water separator or "gamma duct" You can see the little hole on the inside of the gear well with a mirror its bout 3/8" diameter and on the left side of the gear well/box

Edit I think I misundestood you:

There isn't a chamber so to speak infront of the nose wheel well. The nose gear box is where the orange line connects and there is a little hole from the flange the orange scat tube connects into the nose gear well to drain the water.

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Oh crap… No wonder I never saw it…. BTW, it FREAKS ME OUT when that second wave floods the ignition switch…

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Then, if the opening into the wheel well is so small, why is the Scat tubing so large? Does it act as a reservoir?

.... Re-read your initial reply twice (which I often have to do...). I get it. Thanks.

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The guts of the ignition switch where the platters and electrodes are is set back quite a bit and is fairly well protected what gets wet is the key way itself which doesn't have any electronics/electrical in it.

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Good to know!!!