Peter M Cowper's RV-8 Airplane Visalia Airport Visalia California

Peter M. Cowper's RV-8 Airplane Visalia Airport Visalia California

Pete Cowper's New House, Visalia, California

My favorite hangar photos

February 2008

After four sessions with riveting helpers over the past three months, the

fuselage lower pilot's floor and side skins are riveted on to the fuselage.

This past weekend I finished riveting the sides of the gear leg boxes to the

thick heavy metal support for the gear legs with 27 rivets in each of the

four sides and riveting the top 3/4" x 3/4" angle supports to the sides of

the gear leg "boxes" with the four rivets in the center between where bolts

will go.

The next step is to take the fuselage out of the jig stand and flip it over

so it is right side up and start working on the upper fuselage skins and

building the interior of the cockpit.

February 2007

These pictures show the fuselage side skin after drilling the rivet holes.

You can see my blue sharpie rivet call outs, sorry for the crappy picture.

The other photo is of the plans with rivet callouts.

These are pictures of the gear leg mounting towers that I have been working

on. The lower welded metal "box" that has all the rivet holes in it is the

one that I had to reorder for each side when the four outer flanges did not

line up with the aluminum angle that forms the large "V" in pictures 4 and

5. The whole assembly is riveted to the side skin and upper and lower

aluminum angle longerons. In picture 5 you can see the heavy reinforcing

plate inside the outer skin.

The box of fuselage parts is slowly emptying. The finishing kit is the only

purchase left from Van's Aircraft. I already have the landing gear legs,

brake system master cylinders, rudder pedals and front and back seat frames.

The finishing kit comes with the canopy and fiberglass fairings for canopy,

wing and tail section fiberglass fairings, plus engine mount and front

fiberglass cowl.

I wonder what type of engines will be popular in the 5 to 7 years it will

probably take me to get to that stage...diesel. Electric, solar power, used

vegetable French fry oil, or will the satellite GPS system feed me engine

power too while it sends be everything else I need to navigate displayed on

my one-piece glass instrument panel?

This is a wing attachment bracket that bolts to the fuselage at the gear leg

towers to bolt to a matching bracket at the front spar at the leading edge

of the wing. You can see my high tech machining equipment used to gnaw this

part out of the large U-shaped aluminum AC6-150x2x4 channel. The channel is

0.150" thick on the sides and 0.230" thick on the bottom. Not enough little

projects like this to justify buying a heavy metal cutting band saw. I

think they leave these thick non-critical dimension parts for us to slave

over to keep the builder in the 51% of the work range for the FAA

requirements of a homebuilt experimental plane. The giant CNC cutting

machines at Van's Aircraft could certainly make quick work of this project

that took me two days of cutting, filing and grinding.

January 2007

The attached photo show my progress on assembling and drilling the gear leg

boxes (WD-822 weldment) to the fuselage. Pictures 1,2 & 3 are my ruinged

parts from the first attempt. Pictures 1 and 2 show how the metal welded

and powdercoated gear leg boxes slip in-between the F-843 lower fuselage

longeron (with bend) and the F-844 longeron. Picture 2 clearly shows my

problem with the drilled rivet hole on the WD-822 weldment upper left ear

not being at least 7/32" inch in from the outer edge of the WD-822 weldment.

Picture 3 shows my new $88.61 each book ends clearly showing the misdrilled

rivet holes too close to the edge.

Pictures 4 and 5 show how the gear leg box tower is assembled in the

fuselage with the three sides forming a box around the WD-822 weldment (the

inside of the fuselage skins reflects a mirror image). The fuselage is

upside down in the jig at this point of construction, so the lower floor

will fit on top in these pictures. The gold anodized part in the upper left

of picture 4 is the wing spar center section into which the wing spars are

slid into and bolted. The right side of picture 5 is the cockpit side of the

stainless steel firewall. The white powdercoated support bracket in the

lower corner is one of the four places the engine mount bolts to on the

front side of the firewall.

Picture 6 shows the F-843 lower longeron with the two 1/4" tabs sticking up

from the outer skin just level with the upper edge of the F-843 longeron. I

originally had them level with the floor which was attached to the longeron

which made the outer skin which has the predrilled holes too low on the

dropped down longeron and made the hole going into the WD-822 weldment too

high up and too close to the edge. By shifting it up the holes were exactly

in the center of all four ears of the WD-822 weldments. Picture 7 shows the

outer skin with all the prepunched holes drilled through the inner WD-822

weldment and spacers. One of the 1/4" tabs on the skin to be aligned with

the longeron is visible at the top of the photo with the proper 1/4" of

longeron showing on either side of the tab when the longeron is properly

aligned level with the top of the two tabs. The tabs are later cut off

before riveting the skin to the longeron, as another skin snugs up against

this side skin and is riveted to the 1/4" of the longeron showing bare above

this side skin. After the WD-822 weldments were drilled to each side, the

two sides of the gear box lined up perfectly with the pre-punched holes in

the skin. You can see the line of 1/8" bronze colored clecos (for AD-4

rivets) going down the skin and see the inside barbed point of the clecos in

Pictures 4, 5 & 6 going right down the center of the gear leg tower box's

flange against the inside of the outer skin. The little ripples between

each rivet hole is the shrinking done with fluting pliers to make the web

flat so the line of rivet holes is straight with the curved outside skin's

prepunched holes.

I have the other little 3/4" x 3/4" .125 bracket, like the one already

attached to the firewall side of the gear leg box with two clecos, to drill

to the other side and cleco both brackets to the bottom floor after I

reinstall it between the firewall and center section (would cover the whole

top in these pictures). I then remove these whole gear log box assemblies

and rivet them together on the bench to re-install and rivet to the skins

and longerons later.

I then start removing all the drilled bottom and side skins that are drilled

and clecoed to the fuselage in the Picture "Fuselage.rear." After deburring

both sides of every hole, I dimple or countersink the external visible holes

then start riveting the skins to the fuselage. The fuselage will then be

flipped over upright to finish the top skins and interior.

September 2006

I finished drilling the side and lower skins to the fuselage. After these photos were taken, I finished fitting the rearmost skin by finishing cutting the slot for the tailwheel shaft (not needed on the RV-8A with a nose wheel intended for sissies) and drilling and securing it to the final three closely spaced bulkheads with clekos. I now have moved back up to the front to start on the gear leg mounting boxes.

July 2006

These are some pictures of the earlier construction of the front area of the

fuselage.

The longerons (3/4" x 3/4" aluminum angle) are cut and bent from the

firewall back to the tail wheel assembly, all the bulkheads are clamped to

the fuselage jig positions and the side skins are drilled and clecoed to the

longerons.

Tuesday night I finished the second side skin drilling and am now

fabricating rear seat belt mounts (three pieces per side) for the rear

passenger. The bottom floor skins go on next.

The "Fuselage.Inside" shows the seatbelt attachments for the side and center

seat belt attachments. Since the fuselage is being constructed upside down

at this point they are at the top of the photo. The gold anodized part in

the back of the picture is the wing spar carrythrough.

The "Wing Spar Attach" picture shows the wooden shims that hold the wing

spar center section apart the exact width for the wing spar to slide into

later.

February 2006

I attached the tail wheel spring to the rearmost F-811 & F-812 bulkheads.

You can see the holes at the rear for the tailwheel axle. The F-811

bulkhead towards the front (firewall) is secured to the jig at its position

at 14' 5 31/32" (173 31/32") back from the firewall and 12 3/4" above the

reference line (where longeron 3/4" angle meets the jig 2x4 board) and

leveled and centered in the jig with a plumb bob on a string. The steel

tailwheel spring mount bracket is clamped to the F-811 and leveled perfectly

so the tail wheel will track straight, the back of the tailwheel spring

mount bracket rests in the saddle of the F-812 last bulkhead which is

leveled and stands 12 5/32" above the reference line. The bracket is drilled

and bolted to the forward F-811 bulkhead, but the rearmost F-812 bulkhead is

not drilled for bolts yet as that is done later when the vertical stabilizer

is aligned and drilled to the F-812 and tailspring mount. For now two

keeper rivets are used to hold it in position for aligning the skins, the

1/8 copper colored clecos are now holding it together though the two rivet

holes I drilled.

Next step is to start fitting the upper longerons between the firewall and

center section and begin fitting the fuselage skins moving from front to

rear

These pictures are of the Center Section (spar carrythough) what the wing

spars attach to in the fuselage with the fuselage floor suppor ribs

attached. The "Seat Belt Attachments" picture shows the cleco side grips

still holding on the channel caps on either side. The spring loaded grips

really make a painful blood blister when you are holding them and release

the cleco pliers and they snap closed on the edge of the finger you are

holding them with.

The fuselage is built upside down on the jig.

I mounted the center section to the measured cross member 2x4 standing on

its edge at exactly 34 1/32" back from the firewall. I secured it straight

upright with a level at 25 9/16 above the top of the jig support 2x4

(reference line) then fastened the ends of the four floor ribs to the F-807a

bulkhead clamped at 81" from the firewall that angles forward with

pre-measured triangular shims and stands 23 7/32 above the reference line to

support the rear passenger's seatback... and the four floor ribs passively

met the bulkhead perfectly without having to move them about at all. I bent

the 115" long 3/4" x 3/4" longerons at the 80 15/16" mark the required 3

degrees that bends each up 2 11/32" for the fuselage bend behind the

passenger compartment, then made the second bend at the 33 15/16" point the

required 5 degree bend for 2 27/32" upwards where the longeron angles back

flat from the instrument panel up to the firewall. When I laid the 115 inch

long bent longerons on the jig and clamped them to the powdercoated support

brackets riveted to the firewall they virtually fell into the slots on each

bulkhead and were within a 1/4" of being perfect at the tail where they meet

the F-812 rearmost bulkhead. The two baggage floor ribs span from the

angled passenger seatback rib to the next F-808 bulkhead. The 3/4" x 3/4"

angle longeron is visible attached with Cleco side grips to the bulkheads in

the bottom of the "Baggage Floor Ribs" picture.

What a relief to have a year's worth of jig measuring and building come out

correctly and all the parts match up.

October 2005 Pics of Firewall and Wing Spar Section

Fuselage start....the jigs..........May 2005

I completed construction of my fuselage jig upon which the fuselage will be

constructed. The firewall attaches to the end that resembles a guillotine

frame, the two 15 foot long aluminum angle longitudinals will attach to the

2x4 boards and the fuselage built upside down from those by attaching a

bulkhead at each 2x4 crossbar location. The 15 foot long longitudinals that

attach to the jig are what my arm will rest on when I taxi with the canopy

slid back.

Now I have to decide exactly where to locate it in my hanger's rear tail box

area to still allow me to park my pickup alongside it when I want to leave

it in my hanger without having to move the Austin-Healey. The tiny stripe

of tape on the floor in picture 1 to the right of the last two legs is how

much room I need to park my pickup to the right of the jig. I will attach

it to the concrete floor with a quarter sized dollop of Liquid Nails. I

realize that I will have to live with my location selection for years at my

construction speed. Such decisions in building an airplane...

These pictures show both wings complete....Now for the fuselage........

These are the two boxes my fuselage kit arrived in. I removed all the

packing paper and cardboard and put the stuff back in after checking it.

Note the international sign ($) for fragile. The "Red" meant Redaway

Trucking Company.

These photos show the fuel tank end ribs with the pro-seal sealing the nose

mounting/reinforcing pieces. Lots of areas for leaks at the nose where the

ribs don't fit tightly.

Nasty Stuff. This is my tool and cleco cleaning center.

These photos show the fuel tank's inner (against fuselage end) rib before

and after riveting with Pro-Seal. The sticky nasty black stuff turns to a

sort of grey color. It is supposed to hold aviation fuel after the baffle

plate fills in the still open back of the tank. That large open hole is the

inspection plate. The plate nuts are riveted around the inside and sealed

with pro-seal. The phillips head screws screw through the inspection plate

cover and into the plate nuts. They are threaded. The inspection plate

holds the fuel level sender and the fuel pickup tube.

This is the fuel filler neck. The small clip is for the vent line which

runs all the way back to the inner rib next to the inspection cover hole to

a fitting going through a hole in the rib to the outside.

The skin stiffeners are the first part to rivet to the tank with pro-seal

when starting.

My Airport Cruiser.......