Desert Rat
Well Known Member
Many months ago I fit the main gear wheel pants. Weight off wheels, fuselage level in both directions, laser to align the pants parallel to the centerline and tilted laterally to align with the tire tread. Homemade fixture to level fore/aft. I didn't think I could make these any straighter.
Anyway, I was playing around with them a bit this afternoon and noticed that installed with the plane on it's gear the aft tip of the right one appears to sit about 3/4" closer to my reasonably level garage floor than the left one.
I don't think the floor could be off that much, and while I suppose it's possible that this difference might disappear when I roll it around a bit or get the weight off the wheels, it's entirely possible that I goofed something up when I aligned and drill these back then.
I know that with fiberglass you can fix anything, but I'm curious how much impact if any this might have on flying characteristics if I just leave it.
I know that an out of alignment strut faring can have a big impact on yaw, but suspect that the pressure recovery pant would be much more forgiving of a minor misalignment, especially a vertical one.
Does anybody have any experience they care to share before I dig deeper into this?
Anyway, I was playing around with them a bit this afternoon and noticed that installed with the plane on it's gear the aft tip of the right one appears to sit about 3/4" closer to my reasonably level garage floor than the left one.
I don't think the floor could be off that much, and while I suppose it's possible that this difference might disappear when I roll it around a bit or get the weight off the wheels, it's entirely possible that I goofed something up when I aligned and drill these back then.
I know that with fiberglass you can fix anything, but I'm curious how much impact if any this might have on flying characteristics if I just leave it.
I know that an out of alignment strut faring can have a big impact on yaw, but suspect that the pressure recovery pant would be much more forgiving of a minor misalignment, especially a vertical one.
Does anybody have any experience they care to share before I dig deeper into this?
