Rudder Fairings

I’ll be using Aerosun Vxi wingtips which have rear facing nav lights so I do not need the rudder-mounted nav light. This allows me to save an extra wire run and remove some aft weight.

I removed the lobes on the bottom fairing on the band saw and flattened the sides with a belt sander.

I then used some PVC foam to support a single ply of fiberglass to establish the basic shape.

After that cured, I removed the foam and applied flox and two more plys to the inside and added an extra ply to the aft edge on the outside to thicken up the aft edge.

I then let that cure, sanded the exterior back, and added a layer of micro. That was then sanded back to match the profile of the fairing. I’ll need to do more finishing work but I’ll do that later with the rest of the fairings.

The top rudder fairing was given the same treatment as the other fairings and match drilled to the rudder. I added micro to the forward edge to shape it to match the curved profile of the rudder leading edge.

There was a decent gap between the rudder and the tip fairing (over 3/8″) and the profile doesn’t match so I’ll need to extend the tip fairing back and expand it at the aft edge. I’m toying with some ideas for a powered camera mount in the tip fairing. More on that later if I decide to do it.