Today I began work on setting up the fuselage to extend it by 18 inches. This length will allow me to accomplish 3 things. One, create more back seat room for passengers and cargo. Second, it will allow for more back seat leg room in the event I actually carry 4 adults at one time. Third, it will help balance a slightly heavier power-plant as I plan on using a turbo-normalized Mazda Rotary engine.
I secured the fuselage to the table to ensure there won't be any movement while I work on it. At this stage, it is very light weight and easily moved. I then lined up the tail section and set my distances. I plan on using a simple extension without modification of either the fuselage or the tail section. This will give me a flat section over the back seat, providing more headroom and making this a much easier project than removing and replacing the existing longerons.
Then using a straight edge, I set my distances between the fuselage and empenage to 18 inches. Tomorrow I will drop some plumb bobs to establish an exact center line. Then I can measure and cut 6 longerons to fill the space. Afterward will be the gussets and finally the cross braces.