This has a happy ending, but I'm including it here, and probably on VAF as well, so that I can have written documentation saved as a reminder to myself of where the engineering coverage for this came from. Also, when I noticed it, I did a ton of searching on line for info, and while I found lots of pictures in build logs where others have has seemingly the same issue, I really couldn't find any other info. So hopefully, posting it in my build log will help somebody in the future if they run into the same issue. Basically, the pilot holes in the aft deck that are just forward of the notches for the vertical bars are more inboard that all the rest of that row. There are some clearance issues and the need to mate up with underlying angle that cause them to need to be that way, but it causes a potential problem with edge distance on the main longeron. A couple of posts ago I drilled the back deck and it came out great as far as twist etc. But I could see that I had shy e.d. on this hole on one side, or maybe both. Everybody uses 2d as a rule of thumb for edge distance, but if you look at the mil spec, it's quite a bit less than that. For an AN470AD4 rivet, the minimum from the center of the hole is actually .219. Subtract 1/2d from that and you get .1565" from the edge of the hole as a minimum. I measure this with a mic. and discovered that on the port side I was .176" which falls within the mil-spec, but on the starboard side, I was at an unsettling .1485" This is a ridiculously small deviation of .008" below Mil-Spec. According to my arithmetic, even if you split the difference precisely, you would have both sides falling within the mil spec by a microscopic .006" For me it would be pretty much impossible to hold that kind of tolerance outside of a machine shop. People treat that mil-spec like it came down from the mountain on stone tablets, but much like 43.13, it's always just been generic guidance for when the manufacturer doesn't give specific guidance. There are quite a few places on this project where it's impossible to meet mil spec numbers if built per print and thats fine. That happens on certified airplanes as well. The print is approved engineering data that overrules the generic industry standards, but the key is, there has to be approved data to make that work, otherwise you fall back on 43.13 or a mil-spec for guidance. However, in this case, the print doesn't give actual dimensional callouts of this area, so I reached out to Vans to get written engineering coverage for this. The correspondence with Vans is below. "Hi Terry At this point on the longeron short edge distance is not a problem as just aft of this rivet hole you have a large notch for the vertical bars. What you have is acceptable for this location. Sterling From: Terry Shortt Sent: Friday, March 19, 2021 6:38 AM To: Support Subject: Longeron edge distance question @ F-714 aft deck- looking for a sanity check Good morning Guys, Drilled the aft deck yesterday and while I have good e.d. on the F-711D Angle, the #30 hole just fwd of the starboard F-711 vertical bar is a little shy on the longeron. The pre-punched holes in the F-714 aft deck are a little more inbd there than the rest of the row, and I didn't really think about it at the time. After match drilling, the e.d. came up to be .148”. If my arithmetic is correct, this is about .009 below min ED per Mil-Spec. call it .010 for good measure. The one on the port side came out at about .165” so I really don't know what I could have done differently other than pull the pilot holes outbd a little bit. Even if I had readjusted the F-714 to split the difference and had machine shop precision, there is only a few thousandths to play with there. My longerons are just that distance apart. Please let me know your thoughts. Terry"