Friday, March 10, 2006

Lift Strut Fairings - 1 hour (199 Total)

Today I started working on the Lift Strut Fairings. I didn't get very far before I decided that I didn't want to use them.

The Rans literature shows them as being made out of Lexan; these are made of some type of opaque plastic that wont allow me to see the bolts inside during pre-flight inspections.

After I cleaned up the first fairing, I put it on the wing to test it's fit. The most noticeable problem was the forward lip did not have enough curve to it to fit against the Leading Edge Spar. I could have trimmed this off to allow a better fit but the directions called to have a foam rubber seal added to prevent air flow between the fairing and the wing. Trimming the fairing would remove the lip that the seal is suppose to stick to.

I also didn't like their suggested attachment method of using screws without any type of vibration proof locking method.