The ultimate vent story. When I officially started the exhaust business in 1990, Mr. Dean Cochran was my mentor. He was a fantastic guy and a gentleman in every way. One day at lunch he pulled this funny looking little thing out of his pocket and asked me what I thought. I looked at it and said the machine work on it was fantastic but does it work. He explained that many of the T-18s use it and thought the RV crowd might be interested. I took one and mounted it my RV-4, and it worked very well. I asked Dean to get them made but his response was "no way, I'm retired, but if you want them, take this one, get them made and pay me a royalty. I did that, and in a short time I realized a bigger model was needed as the original style was for planes that cruised in the 180-200 mph area. I took the small one had it enlarged and called it the 100 mph model. Every trip I went on, I took the 2 sizes of vents along and showed them to anyone interested. I sold a few of them but wasn't really serious about advertising them. Then one day the phone rang and it was aircraft spruce and specialty. They had heard about the vent and wanted them in their catalog. The rest is history.
the ultimate vent is made by starting with a solid billet of aluminum. They are quite work intensive, and precisely machined to make the disc articulate correctly into the wind and close correctly so they don't leak air. Yes, they are pricey, but they work well and will last a life time. They are also available direct from Clint at Vetterman Exhaust as he keeps a good supply of them. So that is the vent story-short version. I have 4 of them in my cub. 2 in front and 2 in the back. One of the neat things about them is air flow can be directed up toward your head or down toward your lap by just changing the position of the articulating disc. Hope you enjoyed the story. Larry Vetterman