What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Want to fly RV-10 in Colorado

ppilotmike

ppilotmike

Well Known Member
I am an aspiring RV builder, living in Denver, Colorado. My wife and I have been planning to build for a couple years now, and I am very close to pulling the trigger on an RV-10 kit. However, I really want to fly in one before I commit.

Back in February, my wife and I took a vacation to the Vans factory in Portland to get a ride in the 10, but the weather made that impossible (nice to see the factory though - See Trip Post "Pilgrammage to Portland").

Then I took vacation out to Oshkosh for a week this year, in hopes I might get a demo ride in the RV-10, but the people in the Vans tent told me they had given all of the the test flights on Monday (I arrived Wednesday AM).

So now I sit... I'm excited about building a Vans, but I'm worried that the feel of the 10 will be too mushy and not as responsive as I'm looking for. My wife wants a 4-seater, but I just can't make the choice until I know for sure how it will fly. Is there anyone in Colorado with an RV-10 they are willing to take me up in for a demo flight? Please PM me...
 
You should have stopped by the RV-10 HQ at Camp Scholler. You probably could have hooked up with somebody to give you a ride.

bob
 
Depends on what your used to flying...

From 90 hrs in a 172 to the .5 hr RV-10 demo ride at snf 2009 with Joe Blank(signed up at 8am Monday morning)...just no comparison in the amount of room, visibility, power, vibration level, very light in pitch/roll. Working on ailerons. It just takes lots of money/time but will be worth it in the end even with the high insurance/taxes/fuel. Definitely recommend to fly it and see for yourself.
 
Ride in an RV-10

I plan on being at KAPP on September 9, 2010. PM me a phone number and I will give you a call to see if we can set up something.

ppilotmike said:
I am an aspiring RV builder, living in Denver, Colorado. My wife and I have been planning to build for a couple years now, and I am very close to pulling the trigger on an RV-10 kit. However, I really want to fly in one before I commit.
Click to expand...
 
rleffler said:
You should have stopped by the RV-10 HQ at Camp Scholler. You probably could have hooked up with somebody to give you a ride.

bob
Click to expand...

Bob,

Yeah. I missed out on several RV related events that I've since heard about later. We were trying to meet up with several guys from Colorado too, but kept missing them. I never really made it over to Camp Scholler because it was my first time to Osh and I was "busy" pretty much every minute of every day. I think I slept for 2 days straight after I came home! I'm already looking forward to next year.

Mike
 
Jumping in...

Hey Mike! Been awhile. Not going to wait until I finish mine to come fly? :p

If you do find someone, let me know, I'd like to tag along.

There's a couple other -10 builders in our local EAA301, one is supposed to be flying by now, the other was ahead of me by a lot but I don't know where he is now. You might post your request over on the Matronic's forum, the flying guy's a regular there but not here. Doubt he's done with his test phase yet though.

Dwight
 
Space Cadet said:
Hey Mike! Been awhile. Not going to wait until I finish mine to come fly? :p

If you do find someone, let me know, I'd like to tag along.

There's a couple other -10 builders in our local EAA301, one is supposed to be flying by now, the other was ahead of me by a lot but I don't know where he is now. You might post your request over on the Matronic's forum, the flying guy's a regular there but not here. Doubt he's done with his test phase yet though.

Dwight
Click to expand...

If you and Mike can both meet me at KAPA when I arrive on the morning of 9/09/10 I will take you both up in the RV-10.

Russ
 
RV-10 Ride at KAPA

Russ,

Thanks so much for the offer! Unfortunately, I work during the day, so I can't be at KAPA until after 5PM, or on a weekend day.

Mike
 
ppilotmike said:
Russ,

Thanks so much for the offer! Unfortunately, I work during the day, so I can't be at KAPA until after 5PM, or on a weekend day.

Mike
Click to expand...

Sorry Mike, I am coming to Denver to pick up my son-in-law and daughter and head up to Larry Vetterman's Badlands RV Fly In. We did it last year and had a blast even with less than ideal weather.

Give me a call 806 535 1019 and maybe next trip we can hook up.
 
dav1111 said:
Sorry Mike, I am coming to Denver to pick up my son-in-law and daughter and head up to Larry Vetterman's Badlands RV Fly In. We did it last year and had a blast even with less than ideal weather.

Give me a call 806 535 1019 and maybe next trip we can hook up.
Click to expand...

Russ,

Thanks for trying. I will see if I can get a ride some other way. ****, maybe I can make my way to the Badlands Fly-In. Worst case scenario, I can just build with the expectation that the 10 is the plane of my dreams (which it probably is). Enough people have told me that it flies great, so maybe that's enough. Still, I'll keep my eyes open for a demo ride.. Maybe next Oshkosh.. ;)

Mike
 
I've flown an RV-10 from the right seat and while it's nowhere nearly as responsive as a -4 or an -8 (RV's I've got some PIC time in), it totally blows away a Cherokee or a C172 quite handily in the roll responsiveness department. And a 260hp IO540/Hartzel Blended Airfoil CS prop-equipped RV-10 with two aboard will leap off the runway and climb just about as good as a 160hp RV-4 with fixed pitch wood prop!

And as you already know, cruise speed is no contest against a spamcan...
My friends "raced" me from Oshkosh 2009 back home to Wichita Falls TX in their RV-10 vs my Cherokee 140. They left 3 hours later than I did. They landed back at our home airport while I was still 15 minutes away. That's 5 hours vs 8.25 hours in the air, and we both followed the same route, made fuel stops at the same airports, and spent about the same amount of time on the ground at each fuel stop. Both our planes burned almost exactly 75 gallons of fuel each on the trip home. I was pushing my poor little Cherokee as fast as it would go, and they were running 75% power as shown on their Dynon D-120.
 
Last edited:
Neal@F14 said:
I've flown an RV-10 from the right seat and while it's nowhere nearly as responsive as a -4 or an -8 (RV's I've got some PIC time in), it totally blows away a Cherokee or a C172 quite handily in the roll responsiveness department. And a 260hp IO540/Hartzel Blended Airfoil CS prop-equipped RV-10 with two aboard will leap off the runway and climb just about as good as a 160hp RV-4 with fixed pitch wood prop!

And as you already know, cruise speed is no contest against a spamcan...
My friends "raced" me from Oshkosh 2009 back home to Wichita Falls TX in their RV-10 vs my Cherokee 140. They left 3 hours later than I did. They landed back at our home airport while I was still 15 minutes away. That's 5 hours vs 8.25 hours in the air, and we both followed the same route, made fuel stops at the same airports, and spent about the same amount of time on the ground at each fuel stop. Both our planes burned almost exactly 75 gallons of fuel each on the trip home. I was pushing my poor little Cherokee as fast as it would go, and they were running 75% power as shown on their Dynon D-120.
Click to expand...

Neal,

Thanks for the "Race" story. I see that you are building an RV-7. Since you had a Cherokee 140 in the past, I'm surprised you're not going after the 10. Why did you pick the RV-7 over the RV-10?

Mike
 
I still own and fly the Cherokee. Building any RV is pretty much still a distant dream at the moment due to my financial realities... the Cherokee, ready to fly, cost way less than half of what it would take to build even a bare-bones RV-7 and it gets me in the air whenever I feel like flying, and it's cheap to own, operate, and maintain. :D I'd have to sell it before even thinking about purchasing any RV kit pieces bigger than just an empenage kit, and right now the used spamcan market is down the toilet so I couldn't get much for it.

I really don't need 4 seats either. 99% of the time I am flying alone, so my dream RV is to someday have a fast hotrod that's capable of modest acro, and I'd like a side-by-side RV, thus the choice to someday build a -7. I've flown friends' -4's and a -6's before, but after I got to fly left seat in a brand new six-figure-plus RV-7A with 200hp once, I was hooked on the -7 as my ultimate dream plane.

However, I also helped a friend finish building his new RV-8 over the past couple years, and he was generous enough to put me on his insurance and let me fly it to Oshkosh this summer since he wasn't able to attend this year, and I'm really liking the -8 now too. It's easy to land, handles *very* responsive, almost "twitchy"... but it's also got an autopilot for X-C's. Sitting in the middle gives a great "fighter pilot" feeling, and the -8 is pretty roomy inside for a tandem 2-seater (unlike the RV4), and with the large forward and rear baggage areas, you can load it down almost like a flying pickup truck, and not get it out of CG envelope.
 
Neal@F14 said:
I still own and fly the Cherokee. Building any RV is pretty much still a distant dream at the moment due to my financial realities... the Cherokee, ready to fly, cost way less than half of what it would take to build even a bare-bones RV-7 and it gets me in the air whenever I feel like flying, and it's cheap to own, operate, and maintain. :D I'd have to sell it before even thinking about purchasing any RV kit pieces bigger than just an empenage kit, and right now the used spamcan market is down the toilet so I couldn't get much for it.

I really don't need 4 seats either. 99% of the time I am flying alone, so my dream RV is to someday have a fast hotrod that's capable of modest acro, and I'd like a side-by-side RV, thus the choice to someday build a -7. I've flown friends' -4's and a -6's before, but after I got to fly left seat in a brand new six-figure-plus RV-7A with 200hp once, I was hooked on the -7 as my ultimate dream plane.

However, I also helped a friend finish building his new RV-8 over the past couple years, and he was generous enough to put me on his insurance and let me fly it to Oshkosh this summer since he wasn't able to attend this year, and I'm really liking the -8 now too. It's easy to land, handles *very* responsive, almost "twitchy"... but it's also got an autopilot for X-C's. Sitting in the middle gives a great "fighter pilot" feeling, and the -8 is pretty roomy inside for a tandem 2-seater (unlike the RV4), and with the large forward and rear baggage areas, you can load it down almost like a flying pickup truck, and not get it out of CG envelope.
Click to expand...

Neil,

Thanks for the explanation. Just out of curiousity, what do you estimate a piper cherokee 180 would cost these days. I live in Colorado, so it probably doesn't foot the bill for a 4 seat aircraft, but I'm curious about the difference in costs..

mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top