Tricycle Gear Legs and Fairings - Section 46A

Fiberglass and I just don't get along very well. It always feels like I need to make multiple attempts to get it where I believe it will hold up to the rigors of flight & landings.  Wheel fairings are just a pain in the butt to get them fitting properly, at the right angle and parallel to the flight  stream and the longerons.  Also the attachment points seem inadequate without some beefing up IMO.  I tried using the marked screw points in the main wheel pants, only to have one end up  1 inch higher than the other.  As you can see below, I tried the flox mounting method, but felt it added little strength where the screws attach them to the mounts.  So I went back to the method I used on the RV 7 and added 6 layers of 9oz fiber glass cloth in each screw location. This made the fiber glass at least 1/8" thick there and tapered out the glass with peel ply.  We put some chalk lines on the floor and then re-installed the them once they were in the right location.  It turns out the suggested hole locations were not off by much, but enough to make over a 1" difference at the trailing edge between them. 

This is the flox method, even with a lightly attached screw, there was not enough material to add much thickness at the attach points

First attempt using the flox method.

I ground the flox off and added 6-7 layers of 9 oz fiberglass and pressed out the extra resin using peel ply and a roller adding an 1/8" to the wheel pant thickness at the screw locations

the gear leg fairings with the hinge in place for drilling and riveting.

Drilling the hinge on a wood block per the plans.

More drilling in preparation for the countersinking and riveting

Hinges on the gear leg fairing after countersinking and riveting

6 layers of glass cloth for the mounting attachment to the brackets. I did this on the RV 7 and he held up very well.

I bonded the wheel cuff to the wheel pants and they are split so you can remove the wheel pants and cuff as a unit. This was also a lifted idea from other builders and my RV 7

This is a good shot showing the wheel fairings with the cuffs mounted and the extra layers of glass for mounting.

This is the upper main gear strut cuff.