I was able to finish up fabrication for the support frame in this session. I will leave the riveting until I have the skins complete also. The shelf skin shouldn't be too bad to work out but the rear skin will be a bit more difficult because there is no easy way to get it without crawling into the tail cone.
If you look at Mark's prototype, his rear bulkhead didn't have any lightening holes like mine. This means I will also have to cover those so things don't migrate from the storage compartment into the tailcone. The skin stiffners on the top of the tailcone protrude below the level of the lightening holes which means I will need to make a small notch for those also.
When I was discussing doing this with Tim Olson, he commented that the forward bulkhead cover may be considered somewhat structural because of the rigidity it adds. I haven't been too concerned about this because I didn't expect the compartment to be open in flight and it should maintain it's normal function when closed. Now that the frame is in I have absolutely no concerns. This sucker is a lot more rigid than before.
Two other things on the bulkhead cover. I intend to replace the standard screws with 1/4 turn thumb cam locks for quick access. I will then hinge it at the forward frame rail so it opens level with the rail. This isn't where the current split is so I will need to rework that. Also the current rear seatbelt supports go through this area and connect to the hardpoints in the bay behind it. I can work with this but my current plan is to use the AMSAFE belts that would mount to harpoints in the cabin anyway.
Bracket for front left rail.
The front bracket supports the front right rail and also the fore-aft crossmember.
