Brief Description: Continue with float installation setup
I used a combination of old school, strings and plumb lines and new technology, a laser level and digital protractor to get the fuselage located as I wanted.
This photo is also rotated CCW 90 degrees. It shows the laser beam projected from the aft CG point on the table to the 4 ft ruler measuring back from the datum at 41.8 inches. Note the laser beam also intersects the centerline string of the fuselage. The centerline was checked at 3 points to be sure the centerline of fuselage was on the centerline of the jig table. The floats were also centered on the jig table.
To measure the wing angle without the wings available and knowing that a good starting point for the wing bottom and to float top angle was about 3 to 4 degrees, I took a piece of hardwood and machined it to fit the front and wing spar attach points. The front spar on this wing is right on the leading edge and is large diameter than the rear spar which is also tangent to the wing bottom but at the extreme rear of the wing. I had calculated that the difference in this centerline and the wing bottom was approximately 2 degrees based on the difference in the wing spar diameters. The hardwood is made so the top edge of it is parallel to the centerline of the spars and when we adjusted the angle to 6 degrees nose up it "should' give me about 4 degrees on the wing bottom. I also checked the rear upright on the door which Rans says should be vertical with the fuselage leveled for weighing and that was tilted back (or nose up) at 3.5 degrees.
The risk of too much nose up wing angle is that in flight the floats are excessively nose down and begin to reduce cruise speed while too little wing angle means the plane doesn't want to fly off off the water without trying to pull the nose up increasing water run distance.
If we find in testing that this wing angle doesn't work I have enough strut material to make longer or shorter rear struts to adjust the wing angle. This change can normally be made without affecting the needed strut lengths for
