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A lot of aircrafts feature a leading edge fairing for the wing, at the connection with fuselage, in order to reduce the airflow interference.

Aerodynamically speaking, those fan blades in the turbofan engine should also be installed with that leading edge fairing at the connection with the spinner. However I wasn't able to find one like so, not even one those recently released engines. Is this due to patent-related reasons? Does a fan blade leading edge fairing not need to be installed?

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  • $\begingroup$ It seems that there actually are leading edge fairings featured in this case, they are just too small to be discovered, due to the thickness of these fan blades. But I'm still looking for confirmation. $\endgroup$
    – Frank
    Jun 4 at 15:10
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    $\begingroup$ Can you link a picture with the leading edge fairing of an aircraft you're speaking about? $\endgroup$
    – sophit
    Jun 4 at 19:14
  • $\begingroup$ @sophit This is what I'm looking for: personal.utdallas.edu/~klaus/Airplane/wing_root_fairing.html $\endgroup$
    – Frank
    Jun 17 at 4:00

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The blade moves at a far lower airspeed at the root than it does at the tip. So only a tiny fraction of its drag comes from the root attachment.

To the extent there is a fairing, as in a smooth transition surface, it's part of the blade.

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