Tonight I hit a milestone, as I clecoed on the side skins and rolled the aft fuse right side up. It’s great to have a major part of the fuselage taking shape!
I started by reading up on the systems that need to be laid out in the aft fuse. There are a number of wiring runs that need to pass down one of the left hand j-channels between the side wall and the bulkheads. It’s much easier to do this before putting the side skins on, so I studied the diagrams to understand it all. I identified that one of the wires shown in the plans was not in the wiring harness, but I went ahead anyway. [edit] I’ve since confirmed with Vans that the wire has been deleted from the plans.
I didn’t attempt to use the wire ties at this stage, and instead used a little masking tape to hold the wires in place while getting everything set up.
I ran the wiring harness and phone cable, then carefully clecoed on the left side skin. Then I carefully rolled the assembly upright.
Once upright, the right j-channels and longeron can be installed, the aft bulkhead (#11) clecoed on, and then the right side skin is clecoed on. With both side skins on, you can really get a sense of the size of the airplane. The longerons extend forward, and diverge from each other at surprisingly wide angles. The bulkheads sit tall and highlight how much space there is going to be up forward. The cockpit will be wide and tall… this thing is big!
