41-04, steps 2 - 5

Bend wing root fairing 41-04.

Bent the fairings as noted in steps 2 - 5.

Temporarily mounted right wing to fuselage. I found that the bend in the root fairing is off big time; not by a small fraction. The bend's suggested tangent lines look like they are about 1/2" to 3/4" too far from the front edge of the fairing, so the bend does not fit the wing leading edge like I expect it to.

Until I get into it and begin fastening down the fairing and fitting it per the instructions I am not certain it is off that far but it sure looks like it is.

Searched through the posts here on VAF and did not find anyone that had this issue. Rechecked the measured bend line placements and they are as noted in the instructions. Did anyone have issues with the fairing bend not fitting nicely?

Jeff: I followed the KAI on this but ended up more or less wrestling with it until I was happy and was able to get the match drilling done. It's one of they many steps in building where the material doesn't want to do what it's supposed to. I'm just happy the longerons weren't that hard. I didn't do it until I had permanently mounted the wings, and just kept re-shaping it until I was happy enough to match drill. Once that was done, no problem from there on.

If you did it to the plans correctly, surprisingly it will fit when you fasten it down.

I had the same reaction as you. So did a friend of mine when I bent his for his RV10.

update re wing fairing bend

This worked for me, if you have not bent these fairings take a close look, fabricate a test fairing piece before you do it and consider adjusting the bend lines.

My opinion - This what I found this morning as I worked with the fairing bend as instructed in 41-04.

As bent - beginning tangent on the 8 7/8" line to the 6 3/8" line around the 1 1/4" dowel - the fairing bend was too far off to mount properly.

First I made a sample piece of wing fairing from .02 sheet about 24" long and 5" wide with new tangent bend lines that were 15/16" closer ( 7 15/16" and 5 7/16") to the front edge and bent the fairing around the 1 1/4" dowel. That fitted much better to the wing leading edge profile.

I relieved the bend in the fairings as best I could but did not get the fairing back to anything close to flat; I did not try to flatten it out, just relieve some of the bend. Then I drew the new tangent bend lines on the fairings 15/16" closer to the front edge and bent the fairing around the 1 1/4" dowel - I test fitted once and played with the bend a little. That worked well enough to pull the fairing around the wing's leading edge close to its intended alignment and to get the attach screws in.

update_2 > A GOTCHA between 18-04 and 41-04

Redid the bends in the fairing, now fits much better.

This is the second issue I found when I started screwing down the fairing.

A gotcha discrepancy between 18-04 Fuel Tank Skin, the top inboard wing skin, and 41-04 Wing Fairing.

The 41-04 instructions call for dimpling all of the holes in the top wing fairing (including the #17 holes for the #8 countersunk screws). But - 6 of the top inboard wing skin attach holes are not dimpled and do not have dimpled platenuts installed (as the wing instructions indicate); plus, three of the #8 screw attach points in the T-1005B/C Shims (ref T-00006-L/R Tank Attach Brackets) not for dimpled screws.

After reviewing this with Kevin at Van's - he agreed with me to carefully machine counter sink those 9 non-dimpled attach screw points in the wing skin to allow the wing fairing skin's dimpled points to fit down into those attach points. This is instead of the other option of flattening out those dimpled #17 holes and having to truss head screws.

I did a search through VAF forums without finding that anyone else found this. Van's so far had not heard of this plans discrepancy. The most current plans instructions still reflect this disconnect - so that should to be corrected.