As the weather allows some priming, today session was all about just that. First some deburring, some sanding, degreasing and then the priming. Despite having prepared only a small batch of paint, I had some left over after all the parts were done, so I primed parts that were not yet drilled, I'll use the aerograph to touch them up.

Today I installed the gussets that will rigidify the connection between the upper fuselage longeron and the bulkheads. Beginning at the front is the gusset from longeron to the firewall.



Then the canopy deck, finishing the upper longeron.



The gusset for the seat bulkhead is a bit more tricky as a square hole has to be drilled in the center. This hole is for the canopy closing hooks.



The next two bulkheads just needs this small gussets. I installed the upper skin to have the gussets drilled precisely in position.



And to finish, I installed the parts that will hold the shoulder harness cable.

Today I tackled the aft deck installation. First I fabricated the two spacers that have to be inserted between the bulkheads and the deck. On the picture look for the shiny non primed parts/



Before drilling I checked that the fuselage was twist free.



After the drilling, I riveted the skins to the longeron where the aft deck will meet the longeron. Those rivets would be difficult to set once the deck is in place.



I also riveted part of the forward side skin to the longeron where the canopy deck will be positionned.

Today, I first begun by lowering the sawhorses. The fuselage is now 1'8" from the floor, this will allow working in the fuse and getting under it. I the installed then left seat and the cushions.



Sabine was the first to try the seat out.



They I tested it, and for sure we made airplane noises.



The there is a plate to clamp to the rear of the fuselage making sure there is now twist in it. Centering the part on the longerons showed that there is no twist from firewall to the rear end. I'll drill that later as I haven't read the plans about that part.



Just for fun, we installed the upper skins, it sure looks more like an airplane now.

We were thinking today's job would be easy and we would be able to flip the canoe early, but we noticed that the bottom forward skin was wrongly installed.
There is a side plate on the forward bulkhead that should be sandwiched between the bottom skin and the bulkhead, and we had installed the skin between the sideplate and the bulkhead. This could pose a problem when bolting on the landing gear mounts.
So we drilled out a hundred small rivets,which was easy, but also about thirty bigger rivets which was much less. The end result is we managed to reinstall everything and only have two bad looking holes that will get bolts instead of rivets.
Here is one of the rivet line we had to drill out.



Then we finished all the riveting left. To flip the whole assembly we first put the fuselage upside down on smaller sawhorses.



Then Sabine and Antoine came to help flip the canoe. Here are the first pictures, it looks quite big. Before working again on the fuselage, I'll cut some height of the wooden sawhorses to be able to work at more manageable height.
We resisted climbing into the cockpit considering the plastic sawhorses where not that sturdy.