Crazy Instructions!

First, it was a pleasure meeting some of you in person at the 9A meeting before the Van's banquet at OSH. Next year we'll have to make it a bigger event!

So, I get home from OSH and am really psyched to start on the canopy slider frame. Seems I have a pretty good one, overall in pretty good alignment. I'm about four hours into it and am happy with my progress. But, as I read the instructions, I start to get quite confused. It contradicts itself about three or four times in the span of just a few pages. Thank goodness for the VAF archives, as I've now been able to confirm that I'm not crazy. I think I've got the advice I need to move forward.

So, wish me luck guys, tonight I start drilling for the slider frame tracks after confirming the 1/16" edge distance for the 100th time...

Yessir, I know what you mean. I got started back on the fuselage with a new "Gitter' done" mentality, only to find that the next step was the installation of the F-6111 curved ribs under the top skin behind the seats. I now have 2 bald spots from scratching my head on those dudes.

After I got the ribs drilled and clecoed in, I thought to myself "If I was writing instructions for these parts, I wouldn't know how to describe how I did it!".

Those stiffeners drove me crazy!

LOL, it took forever for me to visualize what I needed to do on those darned stiffeners! Got it done correctly on the right side - unfortunately I had started with the left! So, Van's got the do-over fee from me on that one.

You're absolutely right, I have no idea how to describe the steps. Just one of those, "you'll understand after you've done it" steps...

THOSE stiffener ribs...

I put in the Meske tip up modification to my sliding canopy. Then one day, I wished there were two additional stiffeners at the edge of that top skin in FRONT of the two that Van's provides.

While climbing in and out of the fuselage baggage area during construction, I managed to bend over the fuselage skin ahead of those stiffener ribs. You can see the wrinkle that remained after I straightened the skin. It is visible in this photo about 1-inch aft of the canopy skirt. The reflection of the flourescent light above shows the wrinkle clearly. This photo was taken on July 5, 2005, the first day in the paint shop. We were laying out the margins for the different paint colors.