Strake Baffles and Bulkheads

This is going to seem simpler than it is, and there’s no way around it. There’s a lot of sanding, fitting, removing, sanding, etc. that I simply can’t do justice here. Also note that after pleading with the factory, apparently I’m going to have to turn the plane upside down to do the final sealing […]

Strake Preparation

To prepare for the pilot side strake fitting, we leveled the plane fore and aft, then installed the pilot side wing. This was a bit of a trick, and to save our locking nuts we got some 1/2″-20 nuts from Home Depot. After much trial and error, with a little Vaseline the went in. We […]

Lower Strake Alignment

OK, get ready because this is going to be frustrating. Get the doors on the plane (all other work ceases). Get the plane leveled front and back and side to side. Then you need to project a line from the underside of the spar to about 78″ forward (onto previously mentioned doors). This line must […]

Lower Strake Half Glassing

Next we bond the lower strake to the center spar section. This is done with a thick mixture of structural adhesive in between the two parts. Since the strake skin crosses from the center spar onto the wing spar, after mating I shined a high intensity light down between, and marked and cut a line […]

Mounting Sump Tank

The sump tank is installed with four bolts through the ears into the front of the gear bulkhead. The strake has a drain valve that pokes through the bottom of the aircraft. We’ve hollowed out the foam from the bottom of the fuselage. The factory recommends that this not protrude for the retracts, but I’d […]

Strake Transfer Template

This section is only needed if you can’t (due to space concerns) can’t mount the wings. Well, we can only mount one at a time, but we can mount them (props to my home dog Trenaman for the assist) in the garage.