In all fairness to the 1000's of people reading your opinion Bob... what aircraft are you comparing the RV-12 too?
Have you ever removed the cowling from a Piper or Cessna or Beachcraft?
I have. Many times.
Some are easier than others. Some are more involved than the RV-12.
And then some... I think were designed just to give certain people something to complain about...
C'mon Scott. Lots of airplanes have had easily openable cowls, not much different than the hood of a car (sorry - bonnet for the U.K. guys), that allow you to see the engine. Like the Cherokee - a quarter turn of two Dzus fasteners on each side and pretty much the whole firewall forward is open to see.
To me, this is not just a Maintainability issue, but also a Safety issue, in that you get to look at the engine during every pre-flight, instead of just an oil dipstick. If there are any leakage, rubbing, or other issues, they are front and center. Sort of like John Peck's leaking exhaust.
As I get ready to make the first flight on my airplane, I note in the Flight Test Guide that it calls for pulling the cowling after the first flight. Ugh! That means I need another guy (I definitely cannot do it by myself!) And they're not just walking by my hangar door. When I installed the lower cowl a few weeks ago, I didn't have another guy - so I (tried) to do it with my wife. We almost made it, but in the end, we couldn't get the oil cooler holes and everything else to line up all at the same time, plus I scratched my paint pretty good. So I had to take it off again and wait until Tony T. came over a few days later on the ferry and we got it installed (with a lot of pushing and shoving and a few bad words.) Maybe, as you suggest, it wasn't made right and I'll have that problem for the rest of my RV-12 life.
Try not to be too defensive, Scott. Continuous Improvement is a mantra I preached for the last ten years of my working career. I believe in it. Meanwhile, many airplanes with problematic cowls have after-market mods to improve or rectify this very shortcoming - even Vans - as you can see by doing a search of VAF for things like camlocks etc. Some businesses - like Skybolt - even thrive on rectifying the situation.
Since you asked, here are an assortment of easy-opening cowls. Why even in my old favorite - the 737-200 - I could pop open the side cowls by myself in about two minutes, expose the whole engine, and latch them back up by myself in not much more time. And I've done it many, many times!
Bob Bogash
N737G
Super Cub, Cessna 140, Cessna Caravan, Beech Bonanza, Cherokee, Piper Arrow