Lower fuselage fairings

[jaredyates]

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I was out at the hangar with Dwayne and got a couple of photos of our upper strut fairing.

[Nev]

I’m partway through fabricating the gear leg fairings. I didn’t think to attach nut-plates to the gear legs. Question - is it ok to use a self tapping screw into the top of the gear leg ? I might do as Dennis has done above, and attach to the gear leg on the underside, and to the boot cowl on the outside.

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[svyolo]

Nev how did you end up attaching the fairings? Both inside and outside to the top of the gear leg fairing? Flyboys fairing looks like the outside attaches to the boot cowl and the inside to the gear.

[Nev]

I attached them with sheet metal screws into the top of the gear leg, and the inside of the gear leg. They work ok, but there is some wear on the screw holes. Graham Johnson made his from fibreglass and got a very nice fit - I'll probably do the same as a project soon,

I have an idea to glue a foam block to the inside of the fairing, that would sit on top of the gear leg near where the brake line exits. It would hold the fairing in place such that it "floats" in position, without needing screws. I'm keen to try this idea.

[svyolo]

Thanks. I am not sure about G Johnson but Flygirl and her husband did FG fairings. Interesting. They screwed the outside to the lower boot cowl, the inside to the gear legs. It took a few minutes to get my mind around it but I think it is brilliant. Holes in any composite are much more fragile than holes in AL. I am going to start out with fairings like yours because it looks easy. I made up the paper pattern in about an hour.

[Mark Goldberg]

You can attach this fairing with sheet metal screws to the "rib" on the top of your L/G legs. That's what I have always done. I have never installed nutplates there. Start with #4 screws. Maybe in 5-10 years you will need to go up to #6 on a few holes as needed. Mark

[Battson]

Nev I would suggest keeping the outside fairing separate from the inside fairing, the inside one needs to come off a lot more often. The outside one seldom needs to be removed, as Mark alludes to.

[Utah-Jay]

Is that fairing for looks or needed?

[Nev]

I think it probably reduces the amount of air getting into the cabin in that area.

[Utah-Jay]

Thanks Nev

[rodsmith]

I have dreaded making these fairings, found this old thread and got some good ideas. I want these fairings to fit tight in flight, so I pulled the wheels in before making them. I made them similar to what Nev did, took me a couple sheets of poster board to get the shape right before cutting metal. I have a separate piece on the inside that will gap open when there is weight on the gear. The outside will slide up the boot cowl extension. To facilitate that I will use some of the clear protective tape (automotive product) to protect the paint. I have Bob's fiberglass lower strut fairings. Took quite a bit of trimming to fit them. I still have a 1/2 inch gap on the bottom and considering making some sort of flexible rubber seal to fill that gap, or even enlarge it for gear flex. Otherwise when the gear moves it will push the fairing up the strut and there will be a gap in flight. I recall someone using springs to pull these fairings back tight when airborne. I spent an hour looking through newsletters trying to find that reference. If anyone recalls that please let me know.

[AKKen07]

Rod - If you find that I'd like to see it! My fairings are pushed out on the ground and just stay that way. I haven't seen a great way to seal that area up.

[jaredyates]

I hate that you spent so much time looking! We have templates for the shock strut top fairings but those are the only ones I know of. Here is the link for those:

https://bearhawk.tips/772

If you have any trouble with access let me know and I can send a pdf.

[alaskabearhawk]

Mark Scott used a spring on the lower strut cuff. Here's a couple of pictures.

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[rodsmith]

Thanks Paul, must be what I had seen.

[Bcone1381]

That spring is the cats Pajamas!! And This is a timely post as I've also been working on them.

Here is where I am at. I had not conceived a solution for the lower strut fairing/gear fairing interface. I'm away from the shop and will try the spring trick when I get back. The blue tape was used for protection durign the fiberglass layup.

As others in this thread have mentioned, Dennis and Donna set the standard and so I copy every idea I can. Add Mark Scott to the list.

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[rodsmith]

I will definitely be trying the spring. I went ahead and trimmed the lower strut fairing to a good fit. That's nice work on the fairings Brooks. Personally I am happy with Bob's fiberglass strut fairing set. Saved a lot of work. Finally done with fairings, took so much more time than expected.

[AKKen07]

Rod, I agree about the fairings taking a lot of time! I got to that stage and thought it would be a few days to a couple of weeks. D'oh! Anyway I also had less luck with the fairings that I got with the kit. The upper strut fairings were completely unusable and the lower ones took a lot of work to get to "OK."

[alaskabearhawk]

As I'm closing in on getting this thing out of my shop, all the little loose ends are taking up a lot of time! One of them is what to do around the gear legs? Since I'll be going on/off floats the full gear leg fairing would just get in the way, so I decided not to make them. Most, if not all, aircraft out at the field with similar gear don't have any fairings there anyway. . But, I didn't like having the lower aileron pulley and cable exposed either. So this is what I came up with. Very similar to my upper wing strut cuffs, but with a little doodad added as a cover for the lower pulley. It took a bit of doing, but they are done. I used Chem Seal on the inside to hold things together, and for added structure I embedded little aluminum wedges. Trying to make a curved rivet flange all the way around using one piece of 2024-T3 was way beyond my patience level. Once painted they will have some rubber channel along the edge.

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[DBeaulieu]

Very nice work!!

[rodsmith]

Nice workmanship!