Brief Description: Still working on main wheel pants.
Today Charlotte and I finished positioning the main wheel pants by marking and drilling the holes for the inboard brackets. We jacked up the airplane and popped a chalk line for the airplane center line. With the wheels off the floor we measured equal distances from the nose and tail of the pants to the CL. We removed them and did a little more trimming for clearance around the axles and then reinstalled. We measured again to get that equal distance from the CL which turned out to be 41 1/4".
We then marked the four bracket holes (predrilled with nutplates attached inside the nose cap and aft pant). The holes were barely visible through the fiberglass. We then removed the pants and drilled the holes. We reinstalled them by screwing in the #8 stainless steel screws into the brackets and remeasured to check their position again. Both left and right wheel pants came within 1/16" of what we had measured before removing them for drilling. Good enough for us.
We next measured two distances (22" & 34" projected down to the floor and marked) from airplane CL to an upper and lower position on the leg fairings. We ran a closed loop string around the leg fairing and then around a four foot level, stood on end, at the same measurements from CL near the tail under the horizontal stabilizer. With Charlotte holding the string taut and the level perpendicular to the floor, I twisted the leg fairings to a position around the legs that centered the fairing trailing edge between the strings. I then marked the leg at the top and bottom of the CL of the fairing. This will allow us to position the fairing to free stream once we clamp the fairings to the legs after installing the fuselage and wheel pant "interface fairings". We then lowered the fuselage to put the wheels back on the floor. Enough work for a Sunday!
Left wheel pant clecoed into final position.
Upper end of leg fairing aligned to free stream. Note CL on fairing with mark on gear leg matched.
Lower end of leg fairing matched to mark on gear for free stream.
