Day 34

Today was lots of fun. It got down to zero degrees last night here in the balmy Pacific Northwest. So it took a little bit to get the shop warm this morning, but the furnace worked like a champ, and the little extra work we did to insulate went a long ways.

Today we started putting the rear fuselage together with the many rib assemblies we’d been working on early this week. It started with clecoing and riveting the longerons to the bottom skin. After those we’re in place, we were then able to start placing and clecoing the rib assemblies onto the bottom skin to form the rear fuselage skeleton. After the ribs are set, the longerons were placed around the outside of the ribs. Lastly the side step assist frames were slid into place and Cleco’ed. We were even able to begin shooting a few rivets into the step frames before closing up for the night.

Tomorrow we’ll finish the rivets on the rear fuselage frame and begin running the control rods and wiring. Depending on how that goes, perhaps even skinning the outside. It’s looking great!