(page 21-13) Inserting the column...              

The control column (the horizontal shaft to which the joy sticks are attached) is nicely powder coated, and this powder coat must be removed from the bolt holes to allow the bolts to fit.  The instructions say to "finish drill" the holes with appropriate bits, but the center line of the holes is too close to the column to allow the drill body to fit.  Since paint is being removed rather than metal, a drill bit wrapped in tape worked well.

The challenge was inserting the control column through the lightening holes in the floor ribs (click on the picture and look at the lightening holes in line with the vertical red stripe on the cabinet in the background).  It seemed, for the first 15 minutes spent attempting this, that it wouldn't fit (not helped by the fact that I initially had the column backward).  The various ears welded to the column have to be rotated just so as each lightening hole is approached, and a fair amount of displacement normal to the column axis is required.  I nicked the power coat several times in the process, but that seemed unavoidable.  Once the column was in place, the real challenge revealed itself: getting the bolts through the ear holes and bearings with the appropriate washer stacks in place.  In retrospect, I should have super glued the washer pairs together rather than trying to tape them as suggested in the plans.  Turning the fuselage on its side helped.