28+29/04/2025 - Wheel pant fairings (part 5) - 6h

Having more fun working on the wheelpants. This time I wanted to verify as on the plans that the distance between the centerline and the rear of the wheel pant on both sides is equal. 
To achieve this, I repositioned the laser to have the airplane centerline marked on ground and plane.
Then added a wood stick between the ground and the belly of the plane and marked the location of the centerline on the stick. That allows me to have a ruler tape at equal height.

Something else that was important to be able to measure equal height on left and right side is that the ground plane is level on both sides. For this, I used some long aluminum bars that are known straight and leveld them accross the plane. A 3rd aluminum bar is placed on top of the other 2 to ensure the bars in front and rear of the wheels are also level in relation to one another. As you see below, the lengthwise height is level.

And the both spanwise bars are level front and rear.

 

I measured the distance from the centerline to the rear of the wheel pant.

On the pilot side, I got 48 inch and 7/8. (left image)
On the passenger side I got 48 inch and 3/4.  (right image)
Not dramatic, but off by 1/8

   

Being perfectionist as I am, I started thinking about a possible reason and called it a day.


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