After a quick but nice trip to Florida to escort my Dad home, then a beautiful wedding in Searsport, I am back home and ready to resume building.
I finished the rivnuts and test installed the inspection panel, looks like a good fit. 
With the weather finally warm, it is almost time to move to the garage to begin covering. Will I remember how to do the covering? It seems like a long time ago that we covered the tail feathers. Scary but exciting!
Mike Watson, the Challenger dealer in China, Maine is repairing and recovering his Challenger that was damaged by a windstorm. One of the “refinements” that he is putting into his rebuild is a maintenance access panel for the area behind the rear seat. Since he hasn’t patented the idea, I thought it would be a great idea to do the same on my build project. 
Top and bottom supports were installed in between the uprights, then a sheet of aluminum was cut to fit. All that is left to do on the access panel before covering is to install some riv-nuts to hold the screws that hold the panel in place.
I tucked the leading edge of the panel in behind the aluminum bulkhead so that there wasn’t any chance of the wind getting under it and pulling it off in flight.
With all that is going on in our lives right now, it seems like we are going in slo-mo on the airplane. We did however manage to get the primer switch into the panel.
The nose cone is getting fitted and an access panel is being planned for the fuel tank area behind the rear seat. Tonight it is snowing, about 2 inches so far, so I guess there is no hurry getting the plane ready to cover. 
Challenger II 