Morning everyone,

The VF Extra 300 I'm helping a friend with is coming along, although slowly. He cut out the canopy and bellypan this past weekend, and played a little with the wheel pants (they should be interesting). Couple of questions came up, so here goes:

First, he wants to secure the belly pan permenantly to the wing and we couldn't find any reference to "seal, tape, or cover" the leading edge of it where it laps the fuselage (two pics below). Our concern is "airflow" and whether or not it will trap air there. Any thoughts?

Second, it appears there will be a gap between the wing and the plywood panel the wing bolts will screw into (pic below). Has anyone put any extra support or "filler" there, like maybe a piece of 1/4" ply on the underside of the wing? There will also be a major gap between the wing and the bellypan where the bolts go thru. Are you just supposed to drill access holes in the bellypan for the bolts and use a socket head extention to tighten them? Doing this will also leave two "open" holes in the bellypan.....

Lastly, there is a large round "cut out" area (pics below) that just has covering over it. The top side of it is in the cockpit area which will be covered by the canopy, but why is it there? Should it be cut out or left in place? I didn't take a pic of it, but there is also a "cut out" covered area under the stablizer fin at the bottom of the fuselage. The bottom of the fin doesn't protrude thru it, and it's not for control rods for the rudder or elevator, so we can't figure out the purpose for it.

Thanks for any help,

B