Fuselage

Boy, that's a mouthful, isn't it? But that's exactly what I did today. After being out of town all weekend, it felt good to be back in the shop this evening. Here's the thing... these thick plates really reinforce this corner of the forward fuselage. And for good reason. There's a lot going on here. The main wing spars connect to the gold-colored center section bulkhead, the forward part of the wing (the fuel tank, actually) attaches to a bracket that bolts to the bulkhead on the left in the picture below, and the main landing gear bracket attaches to the fuselage in this corner. In other words, this part of the airplane carries much of the load of the entire aircraft. Do I want things good and solid here? You betcha.

It's not apparent at first when you look at this picture, but the part with the white label on it is the one I'm talking about. It's a doubler, fitted and drilled on the inside of the fuselage to the auxiliary longeron (bottom angle in this pic), the lower longeron (upper angle in this picture... remember, it's still upside down), the F-902 bulkhead on the left and the F-704 bulkhead on the right. And of course, there's a matching one on on the other side of the plane.

When I was finished with the F-7101's, I drilled and clecoed the upper tab of the F-902 bulkhead to the upper longeron (picture above) and the lower tab of the F-902 bulkhead to the lower longeron (picture below). (Remember... THINK UPSIDE DOWN)

I'll be glad when this is all right-side-up again.

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