Modeling Wing Root Fairing (1)

In this post I will finish the rear part (the most difficult in this aircraft!) of the wing root fairing. I started this fairing in the previous post.

I previously formed the basic cone, up to the trailing edge. I created it as a separated object, to easier modify its topology. Now I copied into this mesh the further fragment of the fuselage, above the fairing (Figure 25‑1a):

Figure 25-1 New elements of the fairing mesh

I also created a small rounded edge along the trailing edge of the wing (Figure 25‑1b) (more precisely — along its closing wedge, as in Figure 25‑1c).

This inconspicuous part plays the key role in forming of wing root fairing. First, I extruded it up to the station 140, then I inserted in the middle additional edgeloop. Then I could bent this fragment at will, by moving and sliding this middle edgeloop. I aligned this mesh patch to the wing fairing contour in the top view. Then modified its vertical shape, bending this mesh patch around the fairing cone (Figure 25‑2):

Figure 25-2 Extruding the trailing edge

In the next step I extruded this patch from station 140 to station 195. I fitted its end to the bottom part of the bulkhead at station 195. Then I inserted in the middle two edgeloops (at stations 158 and 177). I shifted them on the planes of the corresponding bulkheads, fitting this wing root fairing to the reference cross-sections (Figure 25‑3):

Figure 25-3 Further extrusion of the trailing edge

When it was done, I extruded the bottom edge horizontally, to the centerline. I created in this way the bottom surface of the wing root fairing (Figure 25‑4):

Figure 25-4 Forming the bottom fuselage surface

While evaluating the bottom contour of the fairing in the side view, I realized that its shape depends on two factors. First of them is the fairing contour in the top view (because the trailing edge “slides” on the cone of the fairing upper surface). The second factor is the rounding radius of this trailing edge. To keep the bottom contour in accordance to the side view I had to decrease this radius a little (Figure 25‑5a):

Figure 25-5 Further adjustments of the upper and lower fairing surfaces

After these adjustments, I cut out the corner of the fairing cone, adjusting it roughly to the shape of the trailing edge (Figure 25‑5b). Then I slided this last edge of the fairing cone, fitting it to the upper contour of the trailing edge. Finally I joined these two surfaces by adding a few new faces (Figure 25‑6):

Figure 25-6 Joining the upper and lower surfaces

You can see on the picture that some of these faces have more than four edges. I left them in this state, because they do not disturb the smooth shape of the resulting mesh. (If I split them into a triangle and a quad faces, the triangles would disturb it a little).

As I mentioned before, I copied into this wing fairing object large fragments of the fuselage mesh. I did it to better prepare this element for merging with the fuselage. Finally I did it: I removed all unnecessary faces and created the new ones between the fairing and the fuselage. Figure 25‑7a) shows this new fragment of the fuselage mesh in yellow:

Figure 25-7 Merging the wing root fairing with the fuselage

Figure 25‑7b) shows the resulting surface.

In this source *.blend file you can evaluate yourself the model presented in the picture above.

In the next post I will form the forward part of the wing root fairing.