After the metal work you see in Figure 1, cell 03, had been done ... I discovered that the crush panel front edge was almost 1.5 inches below the back of the canopy frame. (The canopy frame's back edge fits over the front of the crush panel.) Well, I suppose that's the kind of thing that is likely to happen when you're working with two-dimensional tracings and pictures to produce a three-dimensional object in multiple sections ... In any case, it illustrates the engineering philosophy that you have to use your head to save your backside. (OK, yes, I've cleaned that up a little ...)

The initial reaction was to think about lowering the back of the fuselage section aft of the cockpit, thus raising the front of the spine section. The problem with that notion was that it would change the slope of the spine section -- so that was not a good solution. The problem stayed with me through the day, the evening, and the night.

Finally, at about 1:42 a. m., it occurred to me that I had built the spine section on a movable frame that was bolted to the main bulkhead section. Therefore, we could raise the entire spine section without altering its slope. The problem with that solution was that we would have to take all the skin panels down, as well as the frame. (The lower left insert in Figure 1, cell 03, shows the frame end caps and stringers we took down after the skin panels had been removed.) After Steve and I had spent two days taking the results of our hard work apart, we moved the spine section and, yes, the fit and slope were now perfect.

Unfortunately, the just-described solution led to yet another problem ... we would have to fit the crush panel sides to match the pitch on the canopy frame AND the section that fit against the back of the crush panel. The solution to THAT problem was to take the spine section apart and then to reshape the entire spine section frame. I sure wish I had not tried to save time by building the entire aft-of-cockpit section separately ... but that's the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. Never mind, with that valuable hindsight, we spent the last week of August and the first two weeks of September, 2010, re-doing a lot of work. The good news is that the "model" will match the real F-100D fuselage when we're done.

The results of all the revisions are documented in Figure 2. The composite picture in cell 01 shows the crush panel that I re-cut and re-shaped and the installation of the crush panel end cap. It also shows Steve working with the (removed) back canopy panel to make the small adjustments that would ensure that the new crush panel would fit well. Note also the temporarily-attached side panels that were used to check the fit on the repositioned end cap and stringer section.

Figure 2, cell 02, shows a composite picture that documents the re-attached end cap and stringer framework and the re-attachment of the new crush panel.

While we were doing all the re-work, I also wanted to start the work on the inspection plates that were located on the large skin panels. Figure 2, cell 03 shows a collection of pictures that served to ensure that the inspection panel sizes and placement would be accurate. (I took the picture in the upper-left corner at Tom Reilley's place in Kissimmee, Florida on 20 March, 2005. Pete Felts took the picture in the upper right- hand corner -- that picture shows the inspection panel on 56-3000. "Smitty" Smith made it possible for me to get inside the Arizona Air Guard fence at Tucson, AZ, to let me take the pictures of 56-3055 and its right-side inspection panels on 5 February, 2007. That large rectangular panel you see in the center-bottom picture is apparently not found in the earlier models, because I did not see it in any of late-1950s F-100D pictures I examined.)