Its tandem two seat cockpit stretched from just behind the nose to behind the wing leading edge, enclosed by a long, smoothly contoured, three part perspex canopy.
The horizontal tail, mounted on top of the fuselage, was straight tapered in plan with squared tips and constructed in the same way as the ailerons.
The ply-skinned fin, positioned at the elevator hinge line, was narrow and mounted a fabric covered and largely straight edged unbalanced rudder which reached down to the keel.
[2] The main landing gear was a fixed, unsprung monowheel under mid-wing, at the point where the lower fuselage curved upwards toward its more slender rear.
[2] The IS-8 was preferred over the earlier two seat Silimon IIL IS-7 glider as a production aircraft destined for Romanian clubs because of its comparative operational economy and maintenance simplicity.