Bristol Scout Question

[Graham Hunter]

The other night when I was working on my Gavia Scout C I came across a detail that I will need to add after finding some matching references in the Datafile. I am building kit as SN1250 and I noticed (a while back) that there is an oil stain on the cowling (at 2 o'clock). Well the other night I was looking through the Datafile and I came across more examples with what appears to be an access panel on the cowl. I brought the subject up with Tom Morgan at IPMS meeting last night and he suggested it may be an access port for crew to spray fuel on the cylinder heads to ease starting. He further explained that they sometimes did this with rotaries to ease starting. To me that makes sense as the Scout has a 360 degree cowl and access for such a purpose would be difficult if not impossible.

Any thoughts on these access panels?

Here are some examples:
Bristol1250Cowl.JPG

Bristol3034Cowl.jpg

Bristol3032Cowl.JPG

Bristol1607Cowl.jpg

[FOKKERJ]

Hi Graham,

Makes sense to me.
There sure is a lot of blow back aft of the cowl.

Cheers, Jay

P.S. Nice fotografs! Thanks for sharing.

I have a 1932 two cylinder radial engine that has threaded priming cups (small) on each cylinder head for injecting petrol into the heads for starting ease.