Interior Skin Fit

On Monday I began the installation of the skins on the port side of the the fuselage. Like on the starboard side, I started with the interior skins. I found that the holes along the bottom of the skin were drilled differently than the starboard side, and supporting installing it in two different ways shown as ‘A’ and ‘B’ in the pictures below. In fitment ‘A’, the skin is tighter against the longerons, effectively leaving slightly more room inside the cockpit. Fitment B is easier to install, at the expense of interior volume.

Fitment A lines up the skin with a channel that runs below the floor skin and shares some of the holes
Fitment A pulls the skin tightly against this longeron, allowing it to be riveted into the longeron
Fitment B uses more of the inner pre-drilled holes
Skin is further away from the longeron in fitment B, particularly towards the rear, making the last 2-3 holes way too far away to join with rivets

From my inspection of factory photos on Craig’s blog (especially #79), it appears that the factory used Fitment B, at least in the example that is shown. However, the next two photos explain why I chose to go with A: first, there’s a closeout skin (CF-SKN-027-L-C-1) that goes beneath the seat, which only fits properly with fitment ‘A’. Second, I found the carpets were cut such that they fit better with fitment ‘A’. Unfortunately I installed the starboard side per Fitment ‘B’, so I’ll have to go back to fix that.

Fitment A allows this closeout skin to fit (I would have to trim the closeout skin with Fitment B)
The carpet also fits better with Fitment A
Insulating foam applied to the skin
I loosely placed the interior panel just to see how it looks
Quick comparison: with and without the interior finishing panels

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