Gear intersection fairings questions

[Pilottonny]

Now that I am working on the Wheel and gear fairings, I am wondering how the front intersection fairing is going to cope with the movement of the gear leg relative to the bottom of the cowl. The leg flexes at the top but the bottom cowl is quite a bit lower than that. Will the fairing be made with clearance, fore/aft, to allow the gear leg to move up and down? Pictures please!

Also I see that some people split the Intersection fairings of the main wheels in half and attach one half to the front and one half to the rear part of the wheel fairing. Van?s instructions are for making a one-piece fairing. How do you split the two halves if you go for the first option?

How is the top, main gear, intersection fairing attached? I assume plate nuts, but are they installed on the fuselage or on the gearleg fairing? Please post us your pictures.

Regards, Tonny

[Rick6a]

Originally Posted by Pilottonny

.....I am wondering how the front intersection fairing is going to cope.....The leg flexes at the top...some people split the Intersection fairings of the main wheels in half and attach one half to the front and one half to the rear part of the wheel fairing.....How is the top, main gear, intersection fairing attached?....Please post us your pictures....

Tonny,

All reasonable questions. IMHO, you can save yourself a ton of aggravation by buying quality aftermarket intersection fairings. The wheel pant fairings arrive split and are easily bonded into place. Whether you fabricate the fairings yourself or buy aftermarket, just make sure to add an overlap to avoid problems later. Following Bob Sneedaker, owner of Fairings-Etc. advice, I installed his main gear upper intersection fairings with self tapping sheet metal screws. Bob's reasoning is this: If the holes ever wallow out, you can use #8 screws. If for some unlikely reason the holes manage to wallow out even more, you can install nutplates. Using #6 sheet metal screws, mine been operational since 2005 and over 250 hours with no apparent loss of integrity. Learn from my real world experience. To avoid paint chaffing issues where the nose/leg fairings make contact, I'd load up the nose gear to simulate something over max gross weight before permanently locating the nose gear upper intersection fairing.

[Vlad]

Thank you Rick and Tony. One question - how do you install front wheel lower fairing? It looks too big. I was looking at some installations at Oshkosh and some aircrafts do not have them

[Bob Axsom]

I made 0.032 base plates then built up a mold with modeling clay in place on the airplane. After the first ply cured I cut it in two at an angle in line with the nose gear strut. Two more layers were added. I made a "U" shaped backing plate to support the platenuts for mounting the forward half of the fairing and I used the aft cowl center support to mount the platenuts for the rear half of the fairing. The foward installation uses 7 screws to sandwich the fairing to the cowl. The holes in the base plate are dimpled and no washers are required. The rear fairing is supported by three centerline screws. The first one is screwed in to a soft snug fit with a keyholed mounting point in the base plate and the two rear are normal installation screws through normal holes. All hardware is #8. Photos later.

Bob Axsom

[Bob Axsom]

Backing plate

Forward Fairing

Rear Fairing

Installed Fairing

[Rick6a]

Originally Posted by Vladyspassky

......how do you install front wheel lower fairing? It looks too big. I was looking
at some installations at Oshkosh and some aircrafts do not have them

I too notice many RV's that do not sport a front wheel lower fairing. Simple to install, I used the
Fairings-Etc. version. The builder positions and trims the slightly oversize fairing as required to
allow the nose wheel to fully castor to its limit stops on both sides without conflict, then the
fairing is bonded into place.

[Pilottonny]

Bob,

It looks like you left a bit of clearance at the front and the back, so that the leg can move, but I see a lot of planes that have intersection fairings that fit real thight around the leg fairing, not allowing any movement??

Regards, Tonny.

[Bob Axsom]

I did not purposely leave a gap to allow for gear leg flexing but I didn't try to jam it hard against leg fairing either. Because of the short distance from the end of the leg mount cylinder and the bottom of the cowl there shouldn't be a lot of relative movement. Paint wear will happen but that's about all.

Bob Axsom