I spent this session drilling the canopy latch features in the fuselage assembly.
I took my latch drill tool and lined up the upper holes with the rivet holes in the longeron. The rivets have a small dimple on each head, which is the feature I used to align the holes with the entire fuselage.
The holes in the upper and lower bracket were match drilled. You can see how I started removing the material for the latch openings by just blasting a bunch of holes in the structure.
Here’s the final-cut latch openings with the latch installed. Getting this cut to shape was a slow process using a Dremel, files, and sandpaper. Overall, I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.
Here’s a picture of the latch being actuated.
Here’s the latch on the inside. I still need to cut away material on the upper and lower brackets. Fortunately the hard part is over.
