Fairing miracle?

[N941WR]

This weekend I fitted the Van's empanage fairing and it fit great!

From everything I have read this is not normal and I'm wondering if it is because of how I fitted the thing.

Here is what I did.

When examining the fairing I realized there was a small part line on the top where Van's took the original fairing and added around 1/2" to it. I could even see where the original was cut to fit around the elevator torque tubes.

I marked these lines with my Sharpie and trimmed the thing along those lines and low and behold, it fit just great.

The question is, is this normal or did I just get lucky?

(I'll post pictures on my web site later.)

[Ironflight]

On my -8,the fairing fit pretty well out of the box. I had to do just a little bit of "liquid shimming" with epoxy/micro in a few spots - oh, and I added fiberglass fairings under the horizontal tail as well. But overall, not a bad fit. Same was true of all my fiberglass pieces, actually.

(Your mileage may very wildly!!)

Paul

[scard]

Mine fit reasonably well too. I noticed the same (faint) lines and used them in some areas of the fairing as well.

[kevinh]

Yeah - it sounds like these fairings must have gotten better over the years. My emp fairing fit nearly perfectly.

If only the cowl fit so well...

[N941WR]

Thanks for the replies. It is good to know I'm not going crazy.

Here is a picture of it clecoed in place:


FYI - Jeff Bordelon had a great idea for the inspection panel in the tail cone and he was kind enough to help me with sizing mine. I'm just bummed I spent so much time getting the above mentioned fiberglass piece to fit only to cut the aft end of it off.