Installed the F-722/F-724 ribs and the F-750 side panels in the baggage area. Then, I started on the tasks that have to be done before riveting the side skins.
| Attaching nutplates to the F-722L horizontal rib. |
| F-724 rib cleco'd in place. This is a pain to get to, and I thought I would rather do this after the fuselage was right-side-up. Of course, you need to match drill the ribs to the side skins, which will need to be dimpled. So, you have to just get under there and do it now. |
| F-722 Horizontal rib added to the F-724 Vertical rib. |
| Cleco on F-750. This is easier said than done. This took a lot of installing, removing, looking at the plans, installing, does this really fit here, etc. The problem was that F-722 and F-724 needed to be bent a little to get the holes to line-up. I spent a lot longer than the two minutes that you would expect this to take. The dogs went out twice while I was doing this. BTW, the left side took two minutes. |
| See, it really does fit. |
| Mark and drill F-724 to the longeron. |
| Started working on the "tasks that need to be completed" list. First thing was to remove the side skins. I wasn't sure if the FWD fuselage would hold together when I removed the side skins, but it did. You need to cleco the underlying structure behind you as you remove the side skin. |
| Once the skins are off, we can get to the 1/8" holes that hold F-750 to F-722. |
| Then, I had to put the left skin back on because I found a hole in F-902 that I thought needed to be drilled to the longeron. I needed the side skin to hold F-902 in place so I could drill the end flange to the upper longeron. |
| Oops, I thought I needed to attach F-902 to the upper longeron, but I looked at DWG 23, and it says not to drill this hole until the subpanel is installed. Oh, well. |
| In the process of clecoing the side skin on, I found a few holes that were not drilled between the side skin and the upper longeron, so this was not a total waste of time. I checked the right side before removing the side skin, and everything was ok. |
| No side skins. |