DATE: 11-04-2025 – TIME: 1:30 – 4:40 ~ 3:00
I started my day priming the front of the baggage back where the rear harness brackets are to attach. While I was then waiting for the primer to dry I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why I did not have AN5-5A bolts, as specified in the IPL file, for the shoulder harness brackets.
I left the left and right cockpit shoulder harness brackets off, and the jump seat shoulder harness off. I would also note here that the brackets have more holes in them than the top longerons and side skins, so they will have to be drilled out.
Once the primer had dried I clecod the cockpit harness mount channels to the baggage back, removed the clecos I still had in the top channel of the rear wing attach sub-assembly and then clecod the top skin in place per the drawing and the IPL file.
I then used 1/8th clecos to hold the cockpit harness mount channels against the top skin so that the holes can be drilled out to match the holes in the top skin.
One thing to note about the drawings on FR-09 is that the top skin is shown in 3 drawings with just 2 rows of rivets across the back. In the exploded view you can see there are two rows of rivet holes, close to each other, forward of the final row. The second row is for another bracket not shown in this drawing.
When placing the top skin onto the fuselage the longerons go between the side skins and all the side skin uprights. This is similar to the construction of the bottom fuselage skin and the side skins.
Apart from the frustration with the time I wasted trying to figure out what bolt to put into the shoulder harness brackets everything went pretty smoothly.
As of this evening, I have not actually riveted the top skin nor the harness mount channels in place. I figured I would leave that for tomorrow.