FWD fairing and canopy attach

 The FWD fairing covers the fuel tank and provides the attach point for the Canopy hinge. The final fairing will be fabric covered and will be completed when the rest of the plane is covered.


View of the FWD fairing and fuel tank


 The fairing is made up of foam and glass sandwich panels of one ply of 120 style glass and 1/4" PVC foam core. $.5 lb/cu ft density was used. As an alternate, Last-A-Foam urethane foam can also be used. However its been my experience that Last-A-Foam rarely lasts thru shipping. its always coming in cracked. in preparation for the build, a sheet of foam was glassed and allowed to cure.





Templates used to cut foam board

 Templates are made from poster board. The layout is taken directly from the drawings. Again, do not lay out a full template, only lay out half and then copy it and past it together, or flip it over when cutting. this saves time and ensures a symmetrical curve.












Canopy hinge beams and horizontal shear web

 The canopy hinge beams and the horizontal shear web are all assembled using 5 minute epoxy. The circular cut out is for the Fuel tank filler neck. Eventually the gap between the fuel tank and the shear web will be sealed. A small drain tube will allow spilt fuel to drain to the ground. After the panels are jigged with 5 minute Epoxy, they are fillet bonded with a fillet of flox. A 1/2" radius spreader is used.

adding stringers.


The Stringers function as fabric stand offs, only the center stringer is a straight line segment. Because of this and the need for the stringers to form to the curvature, the back side is notched. This effectively reduces the thickness of these stringers by the depth of the notch, so they are not adequate to resist the fabric tension. Later an inner "T" cap of 1/4" wide stock will be bonded to the notched edge to restore the stiffness. Excessive stringers are trimmed flush after they cure.

Finished FWD fairing



As in the aft Turtle Deck, fabric fairing strips are made from .032" plywood. They are made in "Situ" by first building a poster board template. The outline is traced on to the plywood.

Another View looking FWD


The blue fuel lines are for the sight gage mounted on the instrument panel.