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RV-14 First Flight

TimO

Well Known Member
Hey all, had a great first flight today in N14YT. The plane flew perfectly, and I was happy to find that all the temps were great. My CHT's were in the low 300's and oil temps were in the mid-180's to mid-190's when doing full power climbs. It climbs like a rocket and OAT is around 90F today here. It wasn't as stable as the RV-10 but that's not a negative....it seems to have a bit better roll rate and should be not quite an RV-7 but fun for Aerobatics. We'll have to find that out after a few more hours. Otherwise, it's very nice to be near the end of being in the shop and be able to spend more time in the sky. I still have to finish the wheel and leg fairings to earn my higher top speeds, but that's about it...I'll post a pic or two later. Time to get back in the cockpit for some more air time to get rid of these flyoff hours.
Tim
 
Congrats! Seeing more 14s fly give all of us still years off a boost of enthusiasm for keeping the builds going.
 
Glad to hear everything went well, been thinking of you all day wandering.
Congratulations well deserved.
 
Congrats, I've been watching your build and assuming you were close.

It's motivating to see these airplanes come alive.

For me, I'm fitting the canopy, Stein is building my wire bundle, the prop has arrived, the engine is on it's way and so is the firewall forward kit.

I don't think this summer, but fall is penciled in for me.

Good luck with your flight tests.
 
Great news....

Congrats... I've been away at work for the last month, but I hope to post pictures of mine by the end of July. Hopefully it will be in the air by fall.
 
Some pics

As promised, here are some pics...

These first 3 are before the flight, before it was covered in bugs.

I need to get the wheel fairings done...it's kind of RV-12 looking, without them, and although RV-12's aren't ugly, they aren't as sleek looking as the bigger RV's either.

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Here are some from the flight itself. It really flew well. I stayed right around the airport, overhead at first, then after I saw it was all very controllable, I did some flights down the runway.

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Flightline Interior Seats and accessories

Here are some pics of the interior so far. It isn't 100% complete, but it's nice so far. Everything is from Abby at Flightline Interiors. She's a busy gal, so it may take some time to get things, but they come out great.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to use that logo that's on the seats, it's available. I designed it with my daughter, to represent the RV-14 being both aerobatic, and an IFR capable cross country plane, but you can read the pic for whatever you feel it is to you. Abby has the stitch pattern so you can just tell her the colors you want.

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Congratulations! The seats look great and I really like the throttle quadrant.
 
Man, that's one pretty bird!

What color/product did you use on the interior paint? It looks awesome.
 
Great looking plane! Your skills certainly show through. Congratulations. I hope to be in your company later this year.

Steve
 
Thanks Guys, (and girls)
For the Interior of my RV10 I used PPG Concept, DCC 34986 Gray. I liked it because I don't like light colors inside...too much glare on the windows if you take pics. Even this isn't that dark, but every little bit helps. For the RV10 I also added a flattening agent for the panel to make it less reflective and more eggshell. No reflections in my eyes if I can avoid it.

For the RV14 they took that same color code and mixed me up some PPG Delfleet single stage using that same code. This one doesn't use a flattening agent, but instead they just reduce the amount of glossifiers (if that's a word) that are in the paint, to get the proper finish. I There are areas like my seat backs that got pretty dull due to the way I sprayed them but in general I wasn't working hard to make the interior perfect..it's my intention to cover most every bit of aluminum I can. Up here it gets so cold in the winter that the last thing I want is to be able to physically touch the skin. So the paint is just there to give a good base to stick things on, and for now it makes a good color.

The throttle quadrant in my -10 I covered the sides with a vinyl with underboard stuff to give it rigidity, and mounted a USB power socket in both sides up ahead of the mechanism area. So that is where we plug in ipads and phones. I have to make one yet for the -14. I'm not as fond of putting it on the tunnel top like it is, because then you can crush it with things easily.

Regarding the flying, I've put a bunch of hours on it this weekend now and I spoke too soon about ALL the temps being perfect. It's pretty hot here this weekend. The CHT's are all excellent, but the oil temps do creep up. They come down fairly quick too when straight and level, but if you heat soak the engine and then take off again and try to climb, you're going to have to step climb sooner or later. I arbitrarily for the last 10 years have been making 216F my alert temp for oil temp, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll hit that in an extended climb at least if I don't climb at 125kts or better. I can live with it, but if anyone does a well working cowl mod that can prevent that, I'll gladly hack and paint the bottom of my cowl if it improves the oil temps. Other than that, I haven't found too much that bugs me.
 
RV-14A in the air

That is a gorgeous aircraft. I admire your work. Thanks for posting all the great info. My goal is to build an RV-14A. Just got my license in April. Flew in the prototype with Joe Blank last fall and fell for that beauty the instant he let me take the stick. It flies so very well.
 
Regarding the flying, I've put a bunch of hours on it this weekend now and I spoke too soon about ALL the temps being perfect. It's pretty hot here this weekend. The CHT's are all excellent, but the oil temps do creep up. They come down fairly quick too when straight and level, but if you heat soak the engine and then take off again and try to climb, you're going to have to step climb sooner or later. I arbitrarily for the last 10 years have been making 216F my alert temp for oil temp, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll hit that in an extended climb at least if I don't climb at 125kts or better. I can live with it, but if anyone does a well working cowl mod that can prevent that, I'll gladly hack and paint the bottom of my cowl if it improves the oil temps. Other than that, I haven't found too much that bugs me.

Tim,
I would be interested in hearing what your definition of a well working cowl mod. is.

Having concern about oil temps on a brand new, no where close to broken in engine is severely jumping the gun. Especially in the context of doing modifications.
 
Congratulations to the whole family!!

Tim,

Congratulations! I have been following your build on your web page. Nice looking paint scheme and that too you've painted it yourself!! Now it will be interesting to read your travel posts as to how both the airplanes of yours fly together!!


vj
 
Bravo Tim !

Congratulations Tim !

I followed your blog with interest this last year. And I would be curious to see your beautiful plane on videos.
Nice family too !

Eric Moret
France
RV14 - 80% empenage-cone tail kit
 
Congrats Tim!

I bet your oil temps will improve with engine break-in and also when you get the gear fairings installed which gives you increased airspeed & cooling at a given power setting.

Where did your empty weight and CG end up?
 
Just catching up...

Regarding Scott's cowl mod inquiry.... I agree it's too early to worry much about it, but I do have a good general feel for how this airplane is working out and I do think if the oil cooler could more easily evacuate to the outside airstream it would be an improvement that will likely be needed by some people later. Yes, my temps will come down with time, but I also don't live in the hottest region of the country. I probably will actually need to install a throttle valve in front of my oil cooler, like I did in my -10, just to maintain enough oil temperature in the winter. But what really annoys me is when I have to step climb to keep temps down. On my return trip from the cayman islands a couple months ago, with 1180 hours on the RV-10, flying in turbulent clouds talking to foreign controllers who aren't easy to talk to, I found myself asking to stop my IFR climb to 10,000' to let my oil temps relax a bit. I don't want to deal with that in this plane too, and I'm still open to chopping the cowl a little in the -10 to fix it there as well. I just want to know the quickest, easiest, guaranteed way to get the job done without any more modification than necessary. A week or two ago I saw a mod that an aussie flyer says is common there. You slit the cowl in a square pattern on 3 sides, with the aft side not being slit. Then pull the cowl flap created upwards into the cowl about an inch or so. Then glass in the sides between the cowl and the flap. This creates a little slot..they called it a mailbox slot, that although facing forward, apparently exhausts really well. It doesn't disturb the paint too much, and is easy to do. If I can find a dozen people who say that mod works well, I'll probably dig in and do it on both planes. At this point it's a gut feeling that even after break-in the oil temp is still going to be an issue on hot days or extended climbs. It's not urgent, and I don't plan to even spend the time on it until I get the hours flown off...certainly not before OSH. But if I find that by August it's still acting the same, I'm going to figure something out. The cowl cooling is definitely much better than expected...I've very very happy with my CHT's.


Regarding the other comments, thanks all, it is definitely a nice little airplane. You will love it when done. I do and will always think the RV-10 is the best and most comfortable plane Van's sells as a kit. That's the one I wouldn't part with. Truly if you have a family, you probably should be looking at the RV-10 and not the RV-14...it will give your family as a whole a lot of great experience. But the sad fact is, if you want a plane for every mission, you're going to need more than one plane, and the RV-14 perfectly fits the mission I built it for. It will make a good little plane for light aerobatics, it will do X/C fairly well (Although I was thinking the other day that if I started one again I'd consider using RV-10 60 gallon tanks), and is much more comfortable than the 6/7/9 planes to sit in. We took our RV-10 to 49 of the 50 states, and 5 countries so far. The RV-14 looks like it'll be great for doing the same sorts of trips, if you only need 2 seats. The bonus is when you arrive home from each destination you can celebrate with a celebratory roll. :)

For weight, my plane will never be the lightest. I have a significant aux battery system in it as I plan to use it for IFR flight. I weighed out with all the interior parts and everything including wheel fairings laid in place, at 1309lbs. That's more than the factory planes, but I fully expected that. I wouldn't personally be happy in a stripped down plane with a less loaded panel, as my primary goal is IFR x/c, not acro. My CG I believe ended up about 1" forward of the operational limit, which is also I think pretty good. Nearly anything you add for pilots and baggage is going to end up moving that CG aft, so it's nice to start off forward. On that note, many RV-10 builders call the RV-10 "nose heavy". Then they go on to describe how they want to "fix" that by lighter props and such. This is going in the wrong direction. If you can get a good flare, at empty loading weights, and not run out of nose-up trim too badly, that's all you need. That CG being forward will give you a better deal for acro, and for loading for x/c. I haven't had a landing yet that was bad in the -14...the wheels just kiss the ground. It flares nicely, and lands like a -10. The 10&14 are MUCH easier than ANY of the other planes I've flown in the past.....nearly all of the single engine Cessnas, pipers, and a couple of beeches, and better than the twin I flew.

I hope that gives you some encouragement for what you'll expect when you're done. I doubt there will be many people who fly the -14 and go away disappointed. If they do they are looking for something very different in a plane, and shouldn't be looking at the -14 anyway. My first flight in a 6A left me disappointed. I was planning to have kids, and was a tall guy. Once I got in and realized my headset hit the canopy, and I was never going to fit a car seat in it...let alone two, I resigned myself to never being able to build an RV. Van's came thru when they designed the -10. That is the ultimate plane for me. But like a married middle-aged dude with the 7 year itch, I started having some additional longings, and the -14 will be great at taking care of those. :)
 
Tim, sometime when you are down in the Atlanta area you should stop by. I didn't know you were having problems with oil temps. I bet we could figure it out just by looking at it. :)
I have no problems on a hot day in Atlanta after a fuel stop climbing non-stop to 10k'-12K" and the oil temps hit 195-198 and actually start coming down above that. I use 110 KIAS for the climb. I haven't added any louvers other than stock, but I do have the Airwolf remote filter and Challenger oil filter setup on mine. I think that is good for some extra cooling as well. You might consider that before you start hacking the cowling.

BTW, I set up both of my RV-10's the same way and they both perform the same with regards to temp data, and one used Cheltons and one has the AFS, so I think the data is accurate.

Vic
 
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