Influential RVs

[flybill7]

I decided to build a plane back in 2004 but what plane to build? I went on the internet and it didn't take long to realize that Vans was the market leader by far and for good reason. I asked on the Mid-Atlantic RV Yahoo group if anyone in the local area was building and could show me their project, answer a few questions. A guy named Mitchell Lock responded, invited me over to his house and spent a couple of hours with me. I ended up going over to his house three or four times during my build, an invaluable help to a new builder like me. I was thrilled when he become president and General Manager of Vans Aircraft Company. I was building an RV-7 and so was Dan Checkoway at the time. I referred to his excellent site on a daily basis. Because of Dan's site and VAF I never had to call Vans support.

[BillL]

The most dominant for me was Checkoway, but then Chad Jenson was coming along and what Dan did not cover, Chad did. Both had decent websites as I recall. I was downloading all the pages of Chads site at the very moment they went off line.

[rbibb]

Back sometime in early 80s I saw a picture of the prototype RV4 on the cover of some now defunct aviation magazine on a newsstand in a drug store. Read between the lines there and you can detect much about how the world has changed since then.

Well I bought the mag and devoured the article at least a hundred times I’m sure. I wanted to build one. I don’t even think I was an EAA member then.

In 1988 I went to Oshkosh for the first time and got a demo ride. They were flying two planes then, the aforementioned RV4 that now resides in the EAA museum and Old Blue, the factory demonstrator RV6 that had, IIRC, the peculiar looking updraft cooling cowling experiment that Bakersfield RV building legend Allan Tolle once described at a banquet as looking like “something only a mother could love”.

Well my place in line came up and I could fly in the -6 or come back later as demo flights were about to be suspended for the day or something. My heart wanted the -4, my brain said a flight in hand...

And so I got my first flight in an RV in Old Blue with non other than Van himself doing the honors. Also, the copilot headset didn’t work so we were reduced to hand signals. Now here’s the real fun part. Van heads out over the lake and let’s me take the controls. A few turns left and right then he motions to give him back the airplane. He holds up a finger as if to say “hold my beer” and then proceeds to do a roll before I even had time to contemplate how cool life was at the moment.

We head back in and land and I felt like I was doing something useful pointing out a few airplanes that the pilot in command may or may not have seen and the thankful acknowledgement from Van for my efforts made me feel less like the dweeb I was being acting like a 12 year old girl groupie at a boys band concert.

BTW. Went home and mailed in the check (that’s how you did it back then) for the RV4 tail kit that became N144KT that flies today.

But that is not the influential RV I wanted to call out. Sometime in the 80s, or maybe early 90s, Vic Syracuse was featured in an article in Sport Aviation about the building of his RV4 which he had named for his wife at the time Strawberry Tabs. The strawberry for she of red hair and the Tabs for how darn many of them he had to make as they were, as even now, relatively easy to screw up.

Vic’s was one of the first RV4 kits completed IIRC with a serial number in the very low double digits.

The article convinced me I could muster the will to finish my RV4. I did and therefore Vic’s RV4 ranks as most influential to me.

[Girraf]

Mike bullock(RV-7) and Jason Ellis (RV-10) were the guys who helped me see that its in the realm of possible with their build log/ videos. My wife and I also got our first RV rides in an RV-6 through our local eaa chapter which got us looking in the vans direction to begin with.

[roadrunner20]

Hey Steve,
Great meeting & talking with you this week at Oshkosh.

I first sat in an RV-6 at SNF.
Then, Dan Checkoway’s website led the way on my build.

[Auburntsts]

For me it was Dan Checkoway for developing my overall interest in RVs and Tim Olson as one of the initial RV-10 builders.

[iwannarv]

I'm sure there are quite a few who started on this site as a teenager. When I was in the 15/16 yr old range I remember many of the original founders/participants. Doug Reeves, Paul Dye, Jay Pratt, Chris Pratt, Danny King, Scott Schmidt, Mike Starkey, Randy Lervold, etc etc...... A few might remember I was given an RV3 tail kit from this site in 2007, many participated in getting it shipped to me, written up in EAA Sport Aviation, etc.... The -3 tail kit is still in the barn back on the farm, I learned several fundamentals of aluminum working and building on it, broke in my airplane tools on parts of that kit.

What an impact it makes! While the -3 tail is still largely incomplete due to starting things like college/marriage/life/family, I've just hung my completed -10 tailcone overhead in the garage, the complete tailfeathers are up on the wall, and I roll the QB wings in to start this week. I get to rub elbows now in my professional life with some of the influencers I admired growing up, it shaped my career to serve our experimental builders as a sales guy for experimental avionics (Garmin). I enjoy the new (and old) connections made every year!

[fixnflyguy]

Pat Hatch built a beautiful -4 and a couple of his co-worker pilot friends also built a -4 and a -6. Pat gave me my first ride in his -4, and the grin was on!I bought a tail kit shortly after, and inherited Pat's fuselage jig. That was all back in the days of no internet help, and word of mouth or the occasional RViator was all you had. The RV community is of the best in any hobby I have ever taken on, and with this marvelous site to share experience and knowledge, its hard to find yourself "stuck" for long!

[kbalch]

Originally Posted by iwannarv

I'm sure there are quite a few who started on this site as a teenager.

OK, that makes me feel absolutely ancient.

[rv8bldr]

Originally Posted by kbalch

OK, that makes me feel absolutely ancient.

You and me both...sigh....