Ivan's RV-7

Seat floorsTimer icon3h

November 3, 2022

Started working on seats.

I switched to working on seats and their aft support. Since I didn't have all the angles I need to fabricate seats (they come in the wing kit), I ordered T6 angles from Aircraft Spruce.

The first thing was to torque all the seat belt supports and install the floors.

Clecoed the floors.

Then I fabricated the seat hinges (cut to length and removed some hinge eyes).

Fabricated the seat hinges.

I marked the location of the holes on the hinges and drilled them in my mill.

Finally, using the dimensions from the plans, I put the layout on the floors and drilled the hinges to the floors. I was extra careful to locate the aftmost hinges such that an existing hole through the floor and a rib goes through the center of the hinge (the aftmost hinges share two rivets each with the ribs and the floors).

Also, some builders reported getting too small of the distance between some holes and the seat rib flanges, making it impossible to set the shop head on a hinge rivet (it would interfere with the rib flange). However, the dimensions Vans' provide in the plans worked for me. My guess is that maybe these builders measured the lateral position of the hinges differently from what I did? I used 7/8" inches from the edge of the floor. However, at least one builder I saw used what looked like 7/8" from the centers of the holes on the edge of the floor (moving the hinge outboard a bit).

In any case, everything looks good so far. The next step is to start fabricating the parts for the seat itself, which will require locating multiple holes.

The hinges are drilled to the floors. Another view.