Modeling Wing Root Fairing (2)

In this post I will recreate the forward part of the wing root fairing. Basically, it is a variable radius fillet. It starts just at the wing leading edge and transforms smoothly into the cone of the rear wing fairing (Figure 26‑1):

Figure 26-1 Forward part of the wing root fairing in the SBD Dauntless

I extruded subsequent mesh segments of this fillet from the edge of the rear part of the wing fairing (from the point where I left it in the previous post). After each of these extrusions I decreased slightly the size of the last segment before extruding another one, obtaining in this way the variable-radius fillet (Figure 26‑2):

Figure 26-2 Extruded mesh of the forward fairing

Initially these new segments are disconnected from the fuselage mesh, although I fit them to both: the fuselage and the wing surface.

In fact the first two of these newly extruded fairing segments technologically belong to the rear part of the fairing. Thus I had to fit their surface to the three straight longerons that are there in the real airplane (I described details of this issue in the previous post) (Figure 26‑3):

Figure 26-3 Fitting the fairing shape to the straight fuselage longerons

In the next step I merged these next three segments of the fairing with the fuselage (Figure 26‑4):

Figure 26-4 Merging another fairing fragment with the fuselage

Note that I added another section (edgeloop) in the middle segment of the fairing (see Figure 26‑4) — just to fit it better to the wing surface. I did not want to extend it across whole fuselage, thus I terminated it in a triangle at the upper edge of this fairing. Surprisingly, such a triangle does not disturb the resulting smooth, concave surface.

In Figure 26‑4 you can also see the auxiliary reference longerons, which helped me to ensure that this surface forms a straight line along their edges.

To merge the most forward part of this fairing with the rest of this mesh, I had to add more edges to the fuselage (Figure 26‑5):

Figure 26-5 Preparing fuselage mesh for merging with the wing root fairing

Each of these lengthwise fuselage edges “touches” the end vertex of corresponding fillet section. Once I placed them in this way, I removed the original fuselage faces and replaced them with the new ones. The right edge in each of these faces belong to the fairing (Figure 26‑6):

Figure 26-6 Merging the fuselage with the wing root fairing

When I did it, I used an auxiliary plane to evaluate the resulting cross-sections of this fairing along the fuselage centerline. It seems that the presence of the adjacent fuselage faces in the control mesh deformed the circular sections of the fairing around wing leading edge. I decided to fix this minor deformation by sliding the last edge of this fairing outside (Figure 26‑7):

Figure 26-7 Adjusting the shape of the fairing cross-section

Finishing the wing fairing, I finished the main part of the fuselage (Figure 26‑8):

Figure 26-8 The finished wing root fillet

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

In the next post I will form the bottom part of the fuselage (i.e. the part below the wing). I decided to build it as a separate object.