Prior to heading to Oshkosh for Airventure 2025, I decided to build a fuselage cradle following these plans that were referenced on rv10.org. I had previously purchased all the required lumber and cut it to length, so it was a matter of just following the provided instructions for assembling everything together.
I did, however, make a couple of small changes as I put the cradle together. These are described in the photo captions below.
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| Fuselage cradle lumber cut to size |
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| The first modification I made was to widen the space that holds the spars to accommodate the 6" spar alignment rods |
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| An advantage of widening this space is that the side pieces can be unscrewed for riveting the side skins in this area in section 29 without having to move the fuselage |
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| I also modified the rear support as suggested in the RV-10 wiki. This will allow me to remove it later for riveting the tailcone. Here I have the fuselage supported by some foam to give me room to cleco side skins when I get to attaching those in section 29 |
After returning from Oshkosh, I started on the infamous section 29 with all its bending, rolling and twisting. I started by pulling out the longeron angles making sure that I had the correct lengths selected. I then cut them to length, and marked them in various locations for bending and twisting.
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| Bare aluminum angles that will form the fuselage longerons. Make sure to select the correct length which are just slightly longer than the cut lengths called for in the plans |
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| Longerons marked for bending and twisting locations, and a rivet line along each outer side, 5/16" in from the edge |
I then began bending the aft longerons to conform to the provided template. This took some time (up to 2 hours per longeron), but I was careful to match the template bend as closely as possible as this bend will define the shape of the fuselage.
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| Right main longeron being match drilled from the template after bending |
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| Right longeron bent, twisted and fitted to fuselage. The predrilled mid cabin deck holes lined up perfectly with the match drilled holes from the template into the longeron, and the longeron fit easily into the openings in the bulkheads |
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| There is one hole at the front of the mid cabin deck that needs to be match drilled in place as that hole is not present in the template |
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| Bending and match drilling the left main longeron. This longeron also needs a twist, but only at the front |
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| All longerons clecoed in place, and the fuselage shape looks good. I also temporarily clecoed the side skins in place to make sure everything aligned, and it all looks good! |
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| All side skins temporarily attached prior to bending the bottom curves. More fun to come! |
Fuselage Cradle Time Taken: 7.0 hours
Fuse Side Skins Time Taken: 14.8 hours
Dates: July 7 2025 - August 6 2025
Fuselage Cradle Total Time: 7.0 hours
Fuse Side Skins Total Time: 14.8 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 1101.3 hours
Priming Total Time: 134.8 hours (not included in build time totals)
