I begun the installation of the brake and rudder pedals. In fact I only managed to find all the parts in the workshop, mark those that need to be cut or drilled. I then had a thorough look at the install as with the fuselage upside down you have to be careful not to confuse left-right and up-down.

The steps get bolted to a delrin part which is bolted to one of the bagage ribs.



The outer plate of the steps needs to be modified to follow the fuselage curvature. One of the corners gets cut ans then the plate is just twisted to follow the fuselage.



Then I have to finish the installation of the main landing gear support. The supports to bulkhead holes are already drilled, but the holes to the forward longeron have to be drilled. On the picture I have two of the five bolts installed. There are two screws to be installed forward of the bolts (to the left of the picture). Before getting all this apart, I have to install the rudder and brake pedals.

First I installed the stiffeners in the bagage compartment, one horizontally and one vertically.



Then I installed the covers, the one in the back will be riveted and the other will be bolted on to allow access to the flaps mechanism (the flaps tube will pass through the opening on the right).



Then I finished drilling all the holes on the forward fuselage, before beginning the steps installtion process. First you have to drill the mounting plate according to the template in the plan, and then backdrill the holes on the fuselage. Sabine gave a hand during the latter operation.



Here is the left side, the second row of rivets from the right seems slightly misaligned, this is to be sure the rivets are on the stiffener on the inside of the fuselage. The upper left corner of the mounting plate will be trimmed and twisted to folle the fuselage curvature. I still have to finish inside fuselage part of the step install.

Before installing the stiffeners, I refabricate the gussets I had an edge distance problem with. Here is one of them clecoed in position.



Then I drilled into position the four lower skin stiffeners. Help is needed for the two outboard ones as it's impossible to clamp them into position. Sabine gave a hand for this.



The inner stiffeners the get drilled to the support on the main bulkhead



and on the angle on the firewall. The angle drill comes in handy for this holes.

I begin by installing the forward bulkhead, which consist of two stiffeners installing vertically on the skin. They needed to be fluted a bit, and the upper tab had to be tweaked. Then a rather bulky aluminium part gets attached to the longerons and skin, it will help support the main gear leg. It's visible on the left side of the picture with the white label.



Then I prepare the parts needed to install the fuel tank bracket. The wings have three anchoring points on the fuselage : main spar to the main bulkhead, rear spar to the seat bulkhead and fuel tank to the forward bulkhead. The bracket will be bolted to a piece of angle that is installed inside the fuselage, two spacers are also needed. Here are the parts for the right side.



The angle is clecoed on, drilled in a few steps to be bolted and riveted. On the picture you can see the upper bolt, the two spacers are invisible between the angle and the skin.



Here is a picture of the bracket from outside.



Then I reclecoed the forward lower skin to drill the last hole on the angle, it also has to be countersunk to accomodate a countersunk screw. The countersink has to be quite deep.