Groove gear fairing

[Birdseyeview]

Airlina, Very nice, this is exactly what I've been looking for. What is the black gasket between the fabric and the fiberglass? Also, how is the fiberglass attached? I see what looks like multiple screw holes around the perimeter but what is it screwed to on the inside of the fabric? How did you get address the brake line penetrations and header tank drain?

[airlina]

Hi Larry, To answer your questions in the order you asked them, pic 1 shows the profile view of the rubber trim material that is available at mcmaster -carr or possible even amazon, it simply slides over the perimeter edge of the fairing. Pic 2 shows how it attached- I used plain clamps (from ACS) that are the diameter of the fuse tube that they clamp too. These where bonded with 3m scotch weld (the older kit version of hysol) and to provide threading for the fairing attach machine screws, nutserts where squeezed into the clamp hole. The fairing size was determined by the available fuse bottom tubes that happened to be in the appropriate flange area of my fairing. Pic 3 will show how the brake line was handled. Note the 2 small cutouts on the forward side of the front fairing. I didn't like the original kit supplied grove gear that had the brakeline in a slot on the back of the gear , so I sent it back when I found that Grove made a gundrilled gear. That gundrilled hole serves as the brake line, which allows the brake fluid to flow internally thru the gear.
The two cutouts on the fairing are the attach point for the nylaflow tubing. And last , I didn't understand why you were asking about the header tank, until I did a little homework and saw you have tricycle gear. On my taildragger the gear and header are vey separated so nothing to deal with there. Bruce N199CL

[avidflyer]

Did you ever fly the plane with and without the fairing to see if you got any airspeed improvement? JImChuk

[airlina]

No Jim , I knew during my build I better do the fairing mod caus it would be a lot tougher later , so day 1 it was installed . Although I'd like to say my typical cruise TAS is 150 caus of this fairing , I cannot tell a lie- I'm at 120 mph like most everybody else with my configuration. Bruce N199CL

[n85ae]

I'll be the cynic on this thread. I personally think that aside from fairing the lift struts, all the rest of the drag reduction efforts on a Kitfox are nothing more than a way to keep away from the wife and be in the workshop. That the grand total of everything you can do (faired gas caps, grove gear fairing, etc, etc) will amount to .00001% at best. However the hide from the wife in the shop part, is very logical, and makes sense. If you really want to go fast, or be efficient ... You built the wrong airplane.

Jeff