The one last step in this section is a very long one - basically "rivet the whole thing together", so we started doing that. First came the TAS antenna doubler, which I wanted to rivet before attaching the skin (I'll leave drilling the TAS antenna hole for later):
TAS antenna doubler riveted in place
Then we clecoed the skins and started riveting them to the ribs and bulkheads (except for the aft/side holes that are riveted when attaching the side skins or the tailcone). Since the skin is longer than the parts, we needed to improvise a jig to hold it while we riveted:
Size comparison: mid-fuselage parts onto jig vs almost-average-size human :)
Mid-fuselage bottom skins ready to rivet
We got to a good rate of about 2 rivets/minute, which means this still took many hours of work to do all 731 rivets, but gave us good results in the end:
Fully riveted mid-fuselage bottom skins
Fully riveted mid fuselage
With this, the mid fuselage section is complete and ready to attach to the forward fuselage.
Time lapse:
Total mid-fuselage ribs and bottom skins rivets: 1151 Total mid-fuselage ribs and bottom skins time: 99.5h
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