Wendell Folks RV-8 Project - Page 8.

December 10, 2005:  The delivery of the quick-build wings, fuselage, and the finishing kit was the big event today!  The driver from Partain Transportation had no problem in finding Wendell's home.  You can see Wendell had been parked out by the road to be sure the truck and 42-foot long trailer made the correct turn into the drive.  Wendell had parked his RED GMC Envoy out at the end of the runway by the street to provide an easy landmark for the driver upon his arrival.  You can see a little of the RED GMC in the background behind the trailer and Wendell.

Backing that long trailer into the correct position for unloading without driving on the grass runway took a couple of attempts. 

When the ramp was let down at the back of the trailer, the driver gave us the bad news about how the truck had been loaded.  Since the fuselage at the back of the trailer was an RV-8A, we figured out that Wendell's airplane parts were at the FRONT of the trailer, not the back.  The airplane in the middle was an RV-9A, with Wendell's RV-8 tail dragger up at the front of the trailer.  Since the finishing kit was also in the trailer, I think that Van's loaded the finishing kit up on the deck above the fifth wheel, then put his fuselage and wings in first.  The other two airplanes are headed for Cross City, Florida and Jupiter, Florida.  We unloaded the RV-8A fuselage and the RV-9A fuselage into Wendell's shop before we could get out all the parts for Wendell's RV-8.

We did the Texas Two-Step with the other two airplane fuselage assemblies after we got all of Wendell's parts into the shop.  I remembered to take this photo of the RV-9A fuselage on the shipping carrier before it was loaded back in the trailer.   This airplane is one I can relate to in a big way since I built one just like it, the slow way!

Here are the wings sitting on my RV-9 wing cradle.

And here is Wendell with something to smile about!  We were both surprised to find the flaps and ailerons are already assembled!  The firewall has already been drilled for the engine mount, but there is still a lot to do!

I made sure that Wendell saw the serial numbers on the wings matched the number on the fuselage - 1688.

December 11, 2005: I went over to Wendell's this Sunday morning to get my airplane out for a day of flying one "Young Eagle" from the Collegedale airport.  Before I flew away, I had time to convert two of my saw horses back to "short" ones to support the RV-8 fuselage.  When I got back late in the afternoon, Wendell and I moved the fuselage out in the middle of the shop to allow easier movement around it and to bring it into the best lighted area of the shop.

I placed the saw horses in positions that would level the fuselage in both lateral and longitudinal directions.