Fairings

[BravoGolf]

Those are beautiful. Really nicely done.

[Pbruce]

Now that you mention it Rod, I remember that carbon is electrically reactive with aluminum. In view of that, I’ll make sure to keep any carbon cloth away from the margins of the fairings where they might touch the windshield top channel, aluminum-strip wing top fairing and the wing skins. Maybe any screw holes too. Any carbon will be sandwiched between layers of epoxy-glass so will be isolated on the inner and outer surfaces. Thanks for mentioning possible issues. Interestingly, my factory wing tips are 100% carbon/epoxy.

[Bcone1381]

This is what I ended up with for my lower wing strut faringing. Since the gear is hinged and articulates, I pulled the gear together with ratchet straps to simulate zero weight on the wheels when I fabricated everything. But geometery changes when the landing force spreads out the gear. I nice fix I saw on one bearhawk is a sliding strut faring that is spring that keeps it tight to the airframe. I am not a designer and tried then gave up. I took my faring over the band saw and cut the bottom off and riveted silicone baffle material. I like how if fills the gap, flexes, and avoids moving parts.

Here's what I came up with for the lower wing strut fairing. Since the gear is hinged and I want to build the fairings as though it was in flight, I used ratchet straps to pull the gear together prior fabricating these. I saw a clever solution on another Bearhawk aircraft where they used a sliding strut fairing with a spring mechanism to keep the fairing tight against the fuselage irregardless of the weight on wheels. As I'm not a good designer and found it challenging to mimic that and eventually gave up. Instead, I took my fairing to the band saw and cut off the bottom, then riveted silicone baffle material onto it. I like how it fills the gap, provides flexibility, and eliminates the need for moving parts.

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[rodsmith]

Beautiful work Brooks.