Aircraft Assembly Formed of Mating Half Barrel Sections and the Method of Assembling the Same

Systems and methods are provided for assembling an airframe of an aircraft, including receiving a half barrel section of fuselage, advancing the half barrel section in a process direction across multiple stations to separately and simultaneously perform work on the half barrel sections, and subsequently joining the half barrel segments to form a section of the airframe. Each pair of half barrel sections, such as upper and lower half barrels, are progressed through assembly line processes to be delivered to a joining station for joining the half barrels together to form a circumferential section of the fuselage. Multiple joined circumferential sections are joined together to form an elongated extent of the fuselage. Indexing features are provided in the assembly process to monitor and control the progression of the half barrel sections in the work stations of the assembly line process.