And now it’s time for the longerons. This is one of those parts of the project that seems to generate a lot of angst and hair-pulling among RV builders. I spent a lot of time looking at a variety of methods for bending the longerons to match the curve of the fuselage, specifically the technique used in the Orndorff videos – clamp the longerons together, and bend them both at the same time. This saves time over the Vans approach which calls for bending the longerons individually.

The longerons must be trimmed to a specific length – slightly over 173 inches – and since you won’t know if you made a mistake until the fuselage goes together, it’s pretty important to get that measurement right the first time. I rearranged the shop to lay the longerons out across both benches, with the longerons clamped together for stability. I laid out the tape measure blade along them, and clamped it down to the longerons so that there was no slack. Just to make sure there was no error due to that wiggly little hook/tab on the end of the blade, I started the measurement at 1″. The trick is to make sure that you add that 1″ to the cut end so you don’t accidentally wind up an inch short.

I had both Ellen and Whitney double-check my measurements just to make sure there were no errors, and trimmed the longeron ends. First longeron challenge complete, next step is bending them to the right curve!