ORIGINAL: Popriv
ORIGINAL: gboulton
Absolutely you can use the laser level for that. It's an excellent way to check that. Most of them can be turned ''on end'' for a vertical line...or they already project one...and be used to strike a centerline down the fuse as well.
The laser level is perfect with the venessa machine. With the plane hanging on Venessa, I mounted my laser level on my tripod. this allows me to raise the level to align with the wing or the stabelizer.
I level the plane with the laser going right through the cord of the wing then I raise the level ( by cranking up the tripod ) and align it with the stab to check incedence. It was pretty close, not as bad as I suspected...
If you're going to be using laser theodolites, then all you'd need to do would be to scan upwards to the suspension point to get the longitudinal position, then downwards to the fuselage with the aircraft aligned at 90 degress to the plane of scanning to indicate the CG line.
My workshop has been misappropriated by my other half for beehive storage, so I don't have room to get the necessary distance off.
One thing about the design of the Vanessa.
The CG of the aircraft and the Vanessa combinedis directly below the suspension point of the whole thing. The plumb bob is directly below the suspension point of the plumb line. It would be possible to get enough friction on those loops under the wing to get the dowel supporting bar out of line with the main suspension cable. So the suspension point of the plumb bob would not be directly below the suspension point of the whole jig.I concede that you'd have to work at it, but this Seagull Edge 540 I have has a tiny range of CG suggestedin comparison to the overall size of the beast.
If the dowel support bar is short in comparison to the main cable and the loops from the dowels are long, with a good long length overall, then this possible source of error will be irrelevant.
Guess what I'm building over the weekend!