Title: Main Gear - building the hoop
It took about five days to do this step, over the course of two months. I decided to go with Wayne Lanza's method of reducing the main gear drag -- we'll see if that pays off. The gear wraps went as planned, then I installed the brake line tubing. I used tubing large enough that I can slip my brake line down, then covered the trailing edge with foam blocks. Following Wayne's method, I set the gear to the correct angle on my work table, sanded the foam blocks until they were vertical, found the centerline for the new trailing edge, then cut and shaped the blocks into the new airfoil shape. It looks more or less like I expected it to... I then did the trailing-edge layups down onto the face of the gear strut. Those are visible in the first two pictures below. After trimming and sanding the new trailing edges (I made a cardboard template so I could get them as close to identical as possible on each side), I then did the leadingedge layups today. It took a bit longer than I expected (I initially thought it was two UNI, not four) but wasn't exactly hard. The results are in the second two pictures below. The plans normally call for the strut to be up on nail heads at this point. I had trouble getting it to stay on there while doing the layup, so I yanked them out and threw foam blocks underneath. I did tuck the layups around the bottom of the strut where the foam blocks are, so the wraps are complete. It was just easier this way. Honestly, all this work to make these fairings seems a little pointless because the rotary engine can basically bludgeon you through the air even if you DO have extra drag, but perhaps it'll be worth it in a slight fuel consumption savings.


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