Larry Champion RV-8 - Page 2.

September 13, 2005:  Here are the pictures from my recent visit to see Larry Champion now that he is ready to assemble his fuselage on the jig in his basement.  He used a laser device to confirm the correct location of the jig centerline at each of the stud locations.  The string is illuminated by the RED laser in this photo.  You may be able to make out the red line reflecting off the stainless steel firewall even with the camera flash reflection visible in this picture.

Larry has everthing leveled and ready to start the assembly process.

Here is a wider shot of the jig.  We got out some of his large prints to confirm some steps in the assembly that Larry was unsure about.  Van's used similar procedures in the RV-8 fuselage as in my RV-9A.

Larry is doing good work in priming all his seat rib assemblies before final assembly into the fuselage.  I wonder just how much weight he will add to the airplane with this kind of prep work?

December 27, 2005:  Larry asked me to stop by to provide some guidance on assembly of parts of his RV-8 fuselage.   After seeing Wendell's QB RV-8 fuselage, I wanted to get a good look under the skin of it over at Larry's shop.  I could see many similar construction technicques that were used in my RV-9A regarding the lower longeron and the doublers at the wing bulkheads.   Since the RV-8/8A have a "raised" floor board, I wanted a chance to see how it was constructed here at Larry's place.  After I took this photo, we clecoed the floor panel and support ribs to the forward bulkheads.  This helped Larry to see how the layers of metal stacked up before riveting the lower longerons to the fuselage skins.

Larry also wanted my help to insure the proper alignment of the steel weldment that attaches the tail wheel assembly.  The part was welded in a precision jig at the factory and should match the aft bulkheads to the spacing of the rivet holes in the side skins and the aft pan which will have to be cut out for clearance around the weldment.

Wendell stopped by during my visit with Larry and was glad he had ordered the QB fuselage when he saw the alignment procedures I was showing to Larry about skins, lower longerons, flange alignments, etc.