I finished up the passenger side crotch strap mount. My threaded drill bits for the right angle drill came in, so I got to play with my new toy to see how it works. Aside from having a constant small air leak somewhere (it's old), it makes drilling holes in tight quarters 100x easier. The process went much faster and the result was much tidier than the other side.
I match drilled the mount to the rib webs as well as the seat pan, then put the nutplates in place and pop riveted everything together.
With that done, the center section was ready to be attached to the tailcone. The first step in doing so was to insert the longerons in the tailcone so that they are even with the top edge of the side skin. The instructions say to flip the tailcone over to do this, but I found that to be too awkward. I turned the tailcone upright instead and just slide the longerons in place and clamped them to the skin. I was a bit nervous putting the longerons in place, because a long time ago I had to cut a big notch (like more than 3/4 of the longeron angle width) in the top portion of the longeron to accept the vertical bars that will eventually mount the vertical stabilizer. I was sure that I had measured wrong, or the plans dimensions would end up being wrong and the longerons would be useless. Thankfully, the notches and the measurements needed to nest everything together at the rear were spot on - I'm talking width of paper spot on! Phew!
I rolled the tailcone back over and set up another sawhorse for the front center section bulkhead verticals to rest on. All that remains now is to move the center section over and get it clecoed to the tailcone bulkhead. I'm waiting on my muscle to get home for help with that though. The center section isn't actually all that heavy, but it would be too awkward to do alone.
