Cutting Out the Landing Gear Bay

In this post I will cut out the opening of the landing gear bay in the wing. In the SBD Dauntless its shape consists a rectangle and a circle (Figure 19‑1):

Figure 19-1 Landing gear bay in the SBD Dauntless

However, when you look closer, you will notice that the contour of the main wheel bay is not perfectly circular. There is a small deformation of its shape on the leading edge (see Figure 19‑1). I think that it looks in this way because of the technological reasons. Another feature of this opening is the fragment “cut out” in the bottom part of the fuselage, below the wing. (We will make it when we will form the fuselage).

Modeling the Center Wing

On the first glance the SBD center wing section seems to be a simple rectangular (i.e. constant chord) wing, with modified leading edge (Figure 18‑1):

Figure 18-1 Center wing section — the basic shape

However, the landing gear openings visible on the photo can be difficult to recreate in a mesh smoothed by the subdivision surface modifier.

Details of the Outer Wing Panel

In one of the previous posts I showed details of the aileron bay. Now I separated the corresponding wing mesh fragment into a new object. I bent its upper edge like it was depicted on the photo (Figure 17‑1):

Figure 17-1 Internal wall of the aileron bay

On some photos I could see that this wall was built of two pieces of sheet metal. Their seam was located below the aileron pushrod.

Modeling Wing Flaps (2)

In this post I will create internal structure of the upper split flap. Structures of both flaps are similar, thus I started this job by copying stringers from the bottom flap, finished in the previous post (Figure 16‑1):

Figure 16-1 Creating spars of the upper flap