Solo'd my first RV-7 yesterday!!! Pics and a story...

[yakdriver]

Congrats on soloing the 7. You will find it is a great airplane. May I offer some suggestions for the pattern. Find out what manifold pressure it takes to fly about 90 mph with half flaps. Mine is 14". At about 2 miles out I pull back to 14" and I like to be level at pattern altitude at about 1 mi before turning downwind. This usually gives me 110mph as I am ready to turn downwind. Roll in 1/2 flaps and that gives you about 90 or so for downwind. Get the numbers just over your shoulder, pull off most of the power, go to full flaps and turn base. I use 75-80 down final and 70 - 75 over the fence solo 75 - 80 loaded. 140 in the pattern is way too fast as most traffic will be doing 70 - 100. Also a nice tight pattern works a lot better than a long drawn out 3 degree approach. Don

[Snowflake]

My -6 flies slightly slower than your -7 but even so I try to get the speed down to 120 or so before entering the pattern, more as a courtesy to the Cessnas and Cherokees in the pattern that I don't need to be over-running.

I saw your comment about how overpriced the Cirrus is, and then saw the picture of the -7... 3-bladed constant speed prop, and IO-360? That's gotta cost some serious coin right there! But i'm sure you and your father are going to have a blast with it. All of the RV's are such nice planes.

[N55CU]

Great to see my plane for the first time in the air! I didn't know it looked so good! Radomir & I have the new engine in the Heavy RV (Bonanza F33A) and it flew last week! Miss the RV though! Hope to see you and Alan soon!
Randy Utsey
Original builder of "Charlie U"
Charlotte, N.C.

[flyguy44]

Great story Steve. Your Dads next adventure will be learning formation flying. As you know, his hangar-mates have RV-8s and formate regularly...another great adventure. Bill C.

[FlyinOBrien2]

Great story, Steve! I've only flown once in an RV (it was a 6A) and I remember finding myself in somewhat shock from the performance as well, there's nothing like it! Especially on the takeoff roll! Good luck on your upcoming training.

[eric_marsh]

That sounds exciting. Thanks for the story - it's exactly the kind of thing I need to motivate me to go out to the shop and work on my 6a.