ToddK,
Is that a serious question? Monocoque and Semi-monocoque have been around airplanes since the 1930's. First it was aluminum, later fiberglass and then carbon fiber, but there is nothing magic about it in metal and rivets, and it works fine in composites.
In the Long-EZ and all of its derivatives, you have a structural skin composite fuselage, a beefy rectangular or channel shaped spar or two bonded in, and then extra plies of composite tapes reinforcing the fuselage near the spar and distributing loads between the fuselage and the spar. The center section spar typically extends a couple feet out from the fuselage wall and has wing skins around it. The outer wing panels are built with the spar going inboard past where the flying surfaces end, and all of the loads funnel into the rectangular or channel shaped spar or spars. The outer panel main spar usually overlaps the center section, and is pinned to the center section spar with a couple bolts (axis fore-aft) a couple feet apart. On some designs there is only one set of spars at the thickest part of the wing, and the spars are wide things intended to carry all loads including pitching moments. Other designs run some form of a drag spar in the outer panel and connect to a comparitively light center section drag spar with a bolt or two. The drag spar is also bonded to the fuselage with local reinforcements.
Three part wing was also done on hollow wing Lancairs and others. My bird is being done that way.
Billski's Fiberglass Bird | Page 2 | HomeBuiltAirplanes.com , with posts 33 and 35 showing the combination. You could have a ball looking over my log... Not much tube in my bird. Lessee, rudder/brake pedals, parts of the rudder system, stick system, flap actuation, some control bits, nose gear, and the engine mount.
Then there are two piece wings. Sailplanes have been doing this a long time and they take them apart and put them in the trailer after every day of flying. Instead of a center section, there is a beefy box of some sort built into the fuselage, the wings have spars that protrude inboard with the left and right spars overlapping each other through the fuselage, and attached with two big pins one near each fuselage wall. A drag spar may be present and be pinned or just be contained by a pin and socket.
Then there are one piece wings. Yep, one long spar and wing. The Glasair I, II, and III all had a one piece wing that was continuous, even the skins carried across the whole span and through the cockpit, just like some of Pazmany's birds did. I imagine the fuselage sat on a contoured pad, but that there were a few tabs with bolts to hardpoints in fuselage. This approach is also how the canard is typically built and installed on Long-EZ's and derivatives. My horizontal tail is built this way and will be bonded to a saddle in the bottom of my fuselage, then the vertical tail will be built around and bonded to it, then the top half of the fuselage bonded on and to both tail planes. That works too, where I only have nine feet of span and five feet of height to get down the road. Rutan style canards have too much canard span for that move, so they use lift tabs and a cover.
I have personally viewed a Panzl (nee Staudacher) unlimited aerobatic mount, and it has a one piece wood and carbon fiber wing with the aero surfaces removed through the fuselage with two bolts forward (through the main spar) and two aft (through the drag spar) that all run fore-aft through hardpoints in the steel tube fuselage. Oh, and there is this neat take-apart bridge that Greg fashions that closes the bottom of the fuselage and connects the front and back of the bottom longerons together too.
I hope that this does not blow your mind, there are lots of ways to do things. While the Tailwind and various Pitts are way cool, there is a whole 'nother world out there making wings connect to fuselages in other ways.
Billski
