Smitty's RV-9A from Van's Aircraft

RV-9A: Project Entry

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Drilled and clecoed the F-972B-R&L floor stiffeners.
The instructions said to get a friend to help hold the stiffeners in position to get them in. Hmm... There ain't nobody around. Wife's gone to the health club and my kiddo is in school. So I'm gonna' do it by myself. The center most stiffeners are easy, since they can be clamped to the F-983-L&R cover support ribs and F-601J angles on the firewall. The outer stiffeners are a different story. So I took one of the stiffeners and marked where they should go on the inside of the bottom skin. Then I duct taped them into position. Then I went outside to see if the lines I drew on the back of the stiffeners earlier were showing up through the pre-drilled holes in the bottom skin. Then I took my fine point sharpie and marked the center most drill hole in the skin onto the stiffener taped on below. Then I pulled the outer stiffeners out and drilled the single hole in each stiffener with my drill press. Then I re-attached the stiffeners with a single cleco in the center of the stiffener and re-taped each end to the skin using the marks I made earlier on the bottom skin. Then I went back outside and checked the alignment, using the line on the back of the stiffeners. Then I started at the center clecoed hole and worked my way forward and backward, drilling the rest of the holes. This was a lot of crawling in and out, but "a man's got to do what a man's got to do".

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