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new v/s certified aircraft

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olderthandirt

Well Known Member
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
 
Vans is the most successful kit aircraft company by a fair margin. It didn't get that way by disappointing people. Thousands of owners disagree with you.

Erich
 
olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

So let me get this straight. U built a brand new plane , flown it , never actually had a failure ,but have had failures In other aircraft . And u have no confidence in your new plane ?

Sounds like it's all on u man , best sell it to someone who will enjoy it . It's certainly not the plane or manufactures fault.
 
Wow, the guy's story is all over the place... Sounds like modern-day politics with alternative facts.
 
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Take a deep breath. You built it, you can maintain it. These are simple airplanes and the issues you mentioned are not terribly hard to fix.

How about this perspective: How many hours do you have on the airplane? Think about your new car purchases over the years. How many times did they have to go back to the dealer to address various issues? Your airplane is no different, other than it was hand-built by an amateur (which isn't the best recipe for out of the box reliability).
 
olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

When in phase I, and up to 100 hrs, I expect this process to be a learning/development phase ensuring everything is working properly. After that, monitoring should be sufficient. What exact parts are you concerned about, and why? I would make a list of the concerns then gather some definitive data to support or refute each one. If temperature, pressures, vibration is needed to ensure the component is within operating limits, then get it. Then, reassess.

Now that we know how the sausage is made, can we still eat it? :D
 
olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

In a case such as this it would be foolhardy to continue an endeavor that is causing so much angst, anxiety and disappointment.

You need to unload that turkey as soon as possible and turn your money into something you can trust....like a forty-year-old 172. We don't want to see an aviator this unhappy...life is too short to tolerate unscrupulous manufacturers and their dangerous products.

Best wishes in your pursuit of the aviation chariot that will bring you contentment and confidence.

VAFers....don't feed the troll!
 
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Dick;
Hang in there, I have a -12 that I did not build, and I've had more than a few bugs & SB's along the way, but I will tell you, this is an amazing machine, and it only gets better the more you fly it. Keep flying it, and I know you will be happy.
I put 6 hrs on mine this weekend, I should have stopped in at Lopez Island and had a look at yours.

Tom O.
 
I dont get your post...i sell spam cans for the last 30 years and seen many fail during acceptance, delivery and thenafter.....
 
This is almost funny as ANY airplane i fly , I anticipate a failure. Not that it deturrs me from flying or owning or building. That's how I was trained. Anticipate a failure. Be ready for it.

Airplanes are not your ford or chevy. These are pretty intricate machines that require attention to detail and yes, have some fragile components that are not immune to failure. Other parts are rather robust and failure is not expected. The voltage regulator seems to be a thorn right now, we have replaced ours. Once. Now.... the rental 172 on the field here has been through 3 in the last 2 yeas. Oh yeah, the mags went bad too.

ANY airplane is not bulletproof. How they are flown and maintained will tell you a lot about reliability.

IMHO

The op has had a problem with one thing and wants to blame someone. Not the first time it's happened here in the -12 forum. And I'm honestly getting tired of the complaint posts.

Also.

The stock RV-12 does not have an alternator to fail, its more of a stator
Fuel pressure warnings --- really? If the engine is running smooth you have fuel pressure regardless of what that digital readout says.
 
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olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

Dick,

Its a bit unclear from your post what has actually failed on your airplane?

Its worth noting is that modern engine monitoring systems can sometimes induce anxiety simply because they provide much more detailed information than is available in a C182 or the like. I found early on that I had to turn off some of the warnings and prioritize those that were critical (like oil pressure). Otherwise I might get worked up if the charging voltage was 14.1v instead of 14.4v, a difference that wouldn't even be measurable in a Cessna.

I would disagree with the idea that factory ships are inherently more reliable. Back when I was in a flying club with 30-yr old airplanes it seemed like we had an endless stream of maintenance issues that often cost thousands of $ per airplane per year to fix.

Good luck and hope things get better!
 
Well with all the issues and concern for this individual aircraft I agree with the earlier poster that you need to sell it. I am in the market for this aircraft but given the owner feedback on how bad this one is I will probably be offering something under build cost. Let me know if you want to part with it.
 
olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

Dick,
Sounds like you've been reading incident reports regarding the RV-12.
It's not bad pilot technique to expect problems when flying any airplane, things do go wrong sometimes and one should not take off ignoring that statistical reality.
But you are over thinking stuff that can go wrong, not just on the 12 but any airplane.
Be reasonably prepared to deal with what might go wrong, go fly and enjoy it.

If that's not possible, don't fly. You won't enjoy it in any airplane.

The RV-12 is as safe as any airplane flying.
 
You're only kidding yourself if you don't expect failures in a certified aircraft. I have always said that it is not a matter of if but when.
Several exhaust failures, several regulator failures, 8 or 9 vacuum pumps, a generator, 4 alternators, several electrical failures due to wiring, 2 or 3 AH failures, two turn and banks, several encoding altimeters, an HSI, two blind encoders, too many avionics failures to think about, broken rudder spar, one gearmotor, flat struts, one outright engine failure, another leaving parts on the runway after an ILS on a snowy night. Fly enough, things will fail. I think my simple RV with mostly new equipment will be better in the short run. Be prepared, stuff will happen.
 
As the previous poster stated - stuff fails on all aircraft. My 42 y/o Bonanza has regular "failures" - most of which are caught during preflight and during routine maintenance and fixed preemptively. Those that fail in flight rarely ground the airplane and get fixed quickly. The difference: it's expensive, I can't fix stuff myself, and I still have steam gauges and a 40 year old autopilot that works great but if/when it breaks parts are scarce and repair is breathtakingly expensive.

These machines vibrate, pull G's, are exposed to big changes in temperature/humidity/pressure, and have lots of moving parts. When my RV-14A is finished I expect to have a more modern, very efficient airplane that I can fix myself. It may take a while, as with any new machine, to get it settled in. I've had the same experience with new boats and certified airplanes - the stresses of use expose every loose connection, bad part, etc. Things always settle down after a while if addressed correctly.
 
Sam Buchanan said:
In a case such as this it would be foolhardy to continue an endeavor that is causing so much angst, anxiety and disappointment.

You need to unload that turkey as soon as possible and turn your money into something you can trust....like a forty-year-old 172. We don't want to see an aviator this unhappy...life is too short to tolerate unscrupulous manufacturers and their dangerous products.

Best wishes in your pursuit of the aviation chariot that will bring you contentment and confidence.

VAFers....don't feed the troll!
Click to expand...

The best and, in my opinion, the only real solution to his problem.
 
VansAirforce is a bad place to criticize RV aircraft. It is like walking into church on Easter morning and proclaiming that there is no God. The score is 19 to 1 so far.
 
new v/s certified

It's o.k. I expected to get beat up, but I get so tired of excuses and buttering up Van's...they did sell me a ADSB 20 20 out which it turned out was not ADSB out and just made excuses instead of making it right...they are not perfect and it would be nice if all would just admit it...
 
olderthandirt said:
It's o.k. I expected to get beat up, but I get so tired of excuses and buttering up Van's...they did sell me a ADSB 20 20 out which it turned out was not ADSB out and just made excuses instead of making it right...they are not perfect and it would be nice if all would just admit it...
Click to expand...

What specific item(s) did they advertise as 2020 compliant that weren't?

Just curious...
 
olderthandirt said:
So each time I go flying in a brand new RV 12 I am anxiously watching for something to fail...fuel pressure too low, alternater not putting out enough juice to keep battery up to snuff..etc. I have over five hundred hours in various aircraft from super cubs to 182 skylane...never in all those aircraft with many hours on them did I fly waiting for something to fail...and it did not fail except on rare occasion...so I am disappointed...lots of money spent and enormous time spent building...and now a plane I cannot trust...Van's has failed us, kits that have parts that are not trustworthy and not under warranty, I even bought a ADSB 20 20 compliant and it was not...sorry most of you will argue otherwise but I am not happy as I and others would agree..
Click to expand...

Okay....there are always bad hair days. Yes, there are some issues regarding fuel pressure sensors and VR's.....this is "Experimental Building"; something that we all knew at the get go (that is if you've been paying any attention to posts on this forum). These will be worked out....the RV-12 is not a Cub or 182. It is so much more especially if you built it....with no comparison as to how it flys.

Time to sit back, pour yourself two fingers; and think about how to fix the problems. It is part of the ride!
 
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Certified - Ignorance is Bliss

This may or may not apply to the original poster, but I think many people that fly certified aircraft are blissfully unaware of the innards of the planes they fly.

When you build a plane, you become totally aware of every aspect of your plane. You may question some of the engineering, design and quality of some components - because you know so much about your plane.

When you buy an already built certified airplane you are blissfully unaware of some of the junkie aspects of certified planes.

The things I saw in certified airplanes when I did my A&P training blew my mind. Even though my brother works mostly on RV's in his shop, we do get certified planes in every now and then. The poor design and workmanship on some brand new high dollar planes is astounding.

If you're doing your own maintenance, you become aware of all the SB's and design changes. With a certified plane, most owners only learn about SB's, AD's and other problems when they bring the plane in for it's annual.

Like It said in the title: Ignorance is Bliss
 
olderthandirt said:
It's o.k. I expected to get beat up, but I get so tired of excuses and buttering up Van's...they did sell me a ADSB 20 20 out which it turned out was not ADSB out and just made excuses instead of making it right...they are not perfect and it would be nice if all would just admit it...
Click to expand...

The ADSB out 2020 compliance for RV-12 is based on the certification of the transponder and GPS positioning source that feeds it, not whether the ADSB in receiver is installed.

At the time you would have bought your ADSB In "option", there was not a certified GPS positioning source for Skyview and no claim would have been made that the system was 2020 compliant. Purchase of the ADSB In option has nothing to do with whether you are 2020 compliant or not.
Now that the SV-GPS-2020 Ant. is available, if that option is purchased with the RV-12 avionics kit, the airplane will be 2020 compliant, even if the ADSB In option isn't installed.
 
setting record straight

Scott Rison told me when I inquired about purchasing ADSB that the one I would be purchasing would be the new ADSB 2020 compliant ( that is ADSB out) when I got it and installed it I found out it was not the new ADSB compliant one...called Scott and he said it was a miss communication..sorry...but that was it..no refund no effort to make it right, just brush me off....I'm not afraid to say how things really are....this Ducati Regulator failing at 26 hours is another boondoggle with Rotax and Van's not admitting they is a real problem....
 
More then one View

Let me start out saying that I think the RV12 Aircraft is a great little Light sport aircraft
and the challenges that Vans had to build a aircraft with a great useful load is tuff with a Maximum weight of 1320 lbs ( this is the main problem ) 1500 would make a much better aircraft.
With that said there are some problems that need attention.

Dick may have more than his share of problems and we need to not be so hard on anyone that is not 100% satisfied.

If this site is only for people who agree with the mass, then they will be afraid to post any problem that will bring them criticism.

Let's all listen and try to understand what will make this site a more friendly venue.
For the most part Vans has made progress in refining the design and some criticism is good.

My View
 
olderthandirt said:
Scott Rison told me when I inquired about purchasing ADSB that the one I would be purchasing would be the new ADSB 2020 compliant ( that is ADSB out) when I got it and installed it I found out it was not the new ADSB compliant one...called Scott and he said it was a miss communication..sorry...but that was it..no refund no effort to make it right, just brush me off....I'm not afraid to say how things really are....this Ducati Regulator failing at 26 hours is another boondoggle with Rotax and Van's not admitting they is a real problem....
Click to expand...

I can't comment because I don't know the details....
I do know that the RV-12 avionics kit order form has a specific options box to check for choosing the 2020 Ant. that clearly states to choose it if you want 2020 out compliance.

The voltage reg has had a bit of a longevity problem but a failure in 26 hrs is highly unusual.
A lot of failures have occurred as a result of installation error (plugs not fully seated in the regulator, or wires not fully seated and locked into the plug).
 
ADSB

I specify asked Scott Risen if the ADSB was 2020 comliant (adsb out) and he said it was, the idea being if not I would wait till it cam out...now I have to spend a additional $590 to make it 2020 compliant...Scott Hubbard was not part of conversation at the time....
 
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