Center Section Rebuild of my Great Lakes biplane!

[@Kevin_747]

I've had a tour of the Waco factory 22 years ago. Very interesting and its obvious they build premium products. Nice folks too.

[@skyd8726]

The Waco looks stunning! Regarding attention to detail, notice that the gold pinstripe carrys around from the upper/lower surfaces, down the edge of the centre section! Nobody will ever see that... but it's there. Top work indeed!

[@bentonbee1]

Waco builds beautiful ships! Thanks for sharing Ron.

[@ronrogers]

Yes they do

[@DaleShipsIt]

Beautiful attention to detail by those Waco folks.

[@ronrogers]

Indeed!

[@thedolt9215]

What spectacular craftsmanship! God that is beautiful…

[@ronrogers]

It really is!

[@bryancotton7279]

Looks good. Builder and flyer here. I can tell you the hardest skill to learn in building an airplane is perseverance. Everything else can be learned. I've worked for two airframers, namely Sikorsky and Schweizer. Up at Schweizer we were hiring people from a well known Mexican themed chain restaurant and those people became fine aircraft builders, working on the UH60 line.

[@moi01887]

Wow that is so cool! It's amazing to see airplanes still being made with wooden parts in 2024. When I was young, a friend and I worked on restoring a Ford model T that his father bought, and the body was made of sheet metal over a wood frame. It was the only car I've ever worked on that had damage from both rust and carpenter ants!

[@mamulcahy]

When I worked for Bishop, we removed the wings from a Staggerwing for recovering. It blew my mind pondering that each wing panel was attached with two bolts plus 8 flying/landing wires to support the load. Amazing!

[@InvertedFlight]

Nothing about wooden airplanes makes sense to me. I just can't understand how those wooden spars can pull 6G's.

[@ronrogers]

The key is in the type of wood. Wood can be very strong!

[@rlsmith6904]

Nice!

[@ronrogers]

Thanks!

[@thedolt9215]

Ron, could you do a video with you flying and give us a voice over of the specs and performance numbers of the Great Lakes? That would be great!

[@ronrogers]

good Idea, thanks!

[@vinquinn]

It's hard to make money by building things and doing it well, especially if you are a small company. Most people have no idea what it takes. I did not build airplanes, I built x-ray machines. There are all kinds of metal, wood, composites, motors, wires, electronics, glue, paint, etc. that go into the finished product. Then you need qualified, special people who can do this work as it is not normal stuff. And they have to get along with one another. If there is a problem you have to back up your product. Waco seems to be this sort of company. That airplane of yours will be around for many years. I had a ride in something similar many years ago and it was so much fun.

[@AndyRRR0791]

Ron, what you need to build your own aircraft is some motivation. I'd recommend a fly of an RV-8 to help...

[@ronrogers]

I did fly an RV-8 and that is the one I thought of building.

[@leifvejby8023]

Your joke about redundancy regarding the number of wings, a German pilot during WWI, von Hippel, lost a lower wing on his Albatros D V fighter, but still managed to land it unharmed!