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gear leg fairing question

I

Iluke

Well Known Member
Hi everyone,

I am building a tail dragger and have a question about the upper main gear leg intersection fairings:

Do you close up the trailing edge or leave it split so the fairing can be removed?

I am working with Van's fairing which comes split at the back. I think it will make a tighter fit if I bond the trailing edge closed, but then there will be no way to ever remove it completely from the gear leg. I could remove the fasteners and slide it down the gear leg, but it wouldn't fit over the axel flange.

If I leave the trailing edge unbonded, I'll have to option of removing the fairing entirely if I ever need to. I just don't know if that is important, though.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Merry Christmas.

Ivan
 
Split

I rolled my own intersection fairings because I used a non-Van's gear leg fairing (GASP!), and left the trailing edge split. The fairing is secured to the airframe with 4 screws and is easy to remove.

I was thinking about embedding a piece of steel and a Neodymium button magnet to close up the trailing edge, but maybe not. You can also bond the trailing edge with some Epoxy/Flox and cut that out if you ever need to totally remove the fairing.
 
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The plans have you close the trailing edge of the fairing with a piano hinge. Look at DWG C1 & C3 and you'll see the hinge called out to close the gear leg fairings.
 
Iluke said:
Hi everyone,

I am building a tail dragger and have a question about the upper main gear leg intersection fairings:

Do you close up the trailing edge or leave it split so the fairing can be removed?

I am working with Van's fairing which comes split at the back. I think it will make a tighter fit if I bond the trailing edge closed, but then there will be no way to ever remove it completely from the gear leg. I could remove the fasteners and slide it down the gear leg, but it wouldn't fit over the axel flange.

If I leave the trailing edge unbonded, I'll have to option of removing the fairing entirely if I ever need to. I just don't know if that is important, though.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Merry Christmas.

Ivan
Click to expand...

Good Morning Ivan,

I'm a buyer of a nice RV-9A. The builder thankfully left the trailing edge of the intersecting fairings open for removal. I have recently completed SB 07-11-09 which required the removal of the nose gear for shortening. I currently have the main gear removed for powder coating and glad he left them open too. He did not leave the gear fairings open on the main gear so they had to be cut off which means I will be replacing with new and having to make new intersecting fairings for both legs.

A reason for considering leaving them open.

Merry Christmas!
 
Thanks, all. I will leave the intersection fairing trailing edge open for future removal.

Merry Christmas!
 
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