I spent most of Saturday checking the main gear alignment.
I started by bolting the gear in place - the aluminium bars that go over the gear and hold it in place need radiator hose (30mm works well) over the parts where they would touch the gear legs. They also have 1mm thick rubber sheet underneath between the gear leg and flock mounting block.
Then I just measured the distance between the wheel hubs, found the centreline a good way back on the fuselage - over 2 metres back - and then measured out from there half way with an old broom handle as a straight edge.
I then used string from the wheel hub face all the way back to the broom handle and kept moving it until it was in a perfect straight line with the hub face.
Turns out the Port gear was indeed Toe out - by 4cm at 210cm distance. I then found an angle calculator tool on the internet which made it a breeze to find out, from the two values I knew, what the angle was. It was 1.07 degrees for the Port gear. So I need to alter that as I am shooting for 0.25 of a degree toe out.
On the Starboard gear it was a different story with that being Toe in. By 0.4 of a degree. So both gear leg brackets will need to be moved.
I'm not sure why the factory flocked them on there in the first place - the manual shows these not being in place as supplied.
As you can see from the final photo the holes in the wooden brackets are in very different places. I still haven't figured out if there is a smart way to know how much to move these brackets by to achieve the desired toe out - hopefully I'll have a brainwave before I do this or just go back to the string method if all else fails.
Also as a result of doing this job I found out that the wheel axles I have been supplied have be made wrong. There is a flange that is welded on the axle and I am certain it is in the wrong place. I've contacted the Silence factory to see what they say.
UPDATE: It turns out the axles are fine - it just that the wheels are the wrong size. So the wheel supplier will be sending me two new wheels soon. Sorted.
On Sunday I had another break from the kit to go to the world's largest military airshow - The Royal International Air Tattoo - at RAF Fairford. A brilliant show as always with lots of aircraft I had not seen before and top class flying by all.
Some pics here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/andymac53/sets/72157630509985102/show/
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| Gear with rubber hose |
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| Establishing gear alignment |
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| Plywood brackets - holes are in quite different positions to each other |
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