Chapter 24 – Gear fairing final tweaks

Today was essentially a personal day as far as the build was concerned.  I did do some research and a bit of organizing, but as far as the build itself I only got a couple minor, yet important, tasks knocked out on the gear fairing.

I spent a good bit of time comparing the left vs right gear fairing shape and flow to get them as symmetrical and balanced as possible.  Personally I consider these gear fairings to be very nice and right in line with the style I’m looking for on this airplane… but they aren’t perfect.  And I don’t expect them to be.  If I did, or wanted them to be, I wouldn’t have simply free-handed the cut lines and pressed forward.  Again, I want to actually fly this bird … soon!

That being said, per my eye, I could tell the left fairing had a bit more of a raised curved on the top as compared to the right fairing. After a dozen round trips to each side of the plane, I finally made my executive design decision and marked a new cut/trim line on the top of the left gear fairing.

I then grabbed my Fein saw and trimmed away.  I then cleaned up the edge with a sanding board.

Left fairing final shape complete!

But wait, there’s more!

I also trimmed almost 1/8″ off the underside/inboard edge of the right gear fairing (light blue arrow) to add just a skooch more gap between the gear fairing edge and the edge of the hell hole cover seam.

Although this gap is still not as wide as its brother on the left side, it at least minimizes to a degree the obviousness of these gap widths between the 2 sides… it’s all about compromises, right?!

To be clear I should note that when I mention that the “final shape” is complete, that is the perimeter of the respective fairings that intersect the fuselage.  The aft swoosh configurations will not be complete until after the gear fairings are hard-mounted to the gear legs… again, just as a point of clarification.

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