RV-12 First Flights: Photo Album

[MacPara]

RV-12 N128TL, Serial # 120374, built ELSA, with Skyview, lighting kit, ADSB and auto pilot. Completely primed interior surfaces, cockpit painted.
Empty weight 738 lbs
First Flight - Nov 28, 2013
Flight was uneventful, and ended after just half an hour with a fully developed RV grin. I built this plane in my shop, later on the covered patio and in the carport near Tucson, AZ and moved it to the hangar in Marana for final assembly.
The build took me 3.5 years next to a busy job and a job change when I was almost ready to move to the hangar (which set me back almost a year). The build took me a bit more than 1400 hours, mostly due to the idea of priming the interior surfaces and some rework due to the change to the Skyview avionics halfway through the build.

Pictures sent to Don Carl Jones

[rgmwa]

Congratulations Torsten. My build hours are now up around the 1400 hr mark too for much the same reasons. Glad to see I'm not the only one who is taking a lot longer than the advertised hours.

[Gagarin737]

Congratulations Torsten! Have fun.

Joeri.

[Slane]

Hello Forum!
I flew N728SL for the 1st time today after 5 years of construction, off and on, and lots of enjoyment. I would guess total hours in the 1400 range due to a less than quick pace, not to mention the addition of options that each took a bit of time. I'm very pleased with the result and I'm thankful for Van's for a great product and a strong support team.

I'm also thankful to this forum and guys like Scott, Marty, Joe, Tony, Bill and John, to mention a few. Many challenges were met by visiting this forum and reading what others have done.

The first flight was exciting, albeit uneventful. I had not flown for years and the 12 hours spent flying with Mike Seager in the factory N412RV to bring my skills up to par and transition from a Cessna/Piper background was a life-saver. Thanks Mike!

N728SL statistics:
Empty weight = 754
Wheel pants
Lighting Kit
Full Interior
Auto Pilot/Servos
Skyview with conversion harness
ADS-B

First flight involved 3 circuits of my home airport (Twin Oaks Airpark 7S3) with 3 takeoffs and landings. Next weekend I'll start with the flight test cards and progress from there.




What a great feeling to complete a life-long goal of building and flying my own airplane!

Scott Lane
120043
N728SL
Hillsboro, OR

[CFedgeFLR]

First flight from Eagles Nest Project Six from Circle Christian School in Orlando, We got the Pink slip March 24th and flew the first flight just hours later. Watch our video, keep in mind that this airplane was build by high school students as a part of their high school academics and completed during the normal school year start to finish. Come see all the builders at Sun N Fun and take a look at their work.

https://vimeo.com/90044454

CFEdgeFLR
Eagles Nest Six

[rvbuilder2002]

Congratulations to the entire team.
It is great to see another teen build RV-12 project take flight. I think that is the 7th completion so far, with many more to come.

[doncarljones]

Folks,

New RV-12 First Flights have been posted to the Photo Album:

10/16/2012 SN 120469 Bill Cooper
11/21/2013 SN 120119 Tom Odehnal
11/28/2013 SN 120374 Torsten Leibold
12/08/2013 SN 120043 Scott Lane
12/14/2013 SN 120051 James Davis
01/31/2014 SN 120532 Brent Connelly
02/02/2014 SN 120526 James Armsrong
03/07/2014 SN 120496 David Heal

Congratulations to all !

Don

[doncarljones]

Folks,

I forgot to add this second photo of Heinrich's RV-12, which shows its paint scheme better than the first photo.

09/14/2013 SN 120275 Heinrich Scharer

Don

[doncarljones]

Folks,

Here are four more First Flight photos:

04/12/2014 SN 120308 Stanley Ruggles
06/03/2014 SN 120347 Allan Jespersen
06/10/2014 SN 120755 Mike Howard
06/18/2014 SN 120464 Stan Bahrns

Congratulations to all!

Please click on RV-12 first Flights: Photo Album below and go to the bottom of the Album to see these new photos.

Don

[Godo]

Well? ...It took some more weekends than what I would have liked, but result turned great.

After all the riveting, the SB's, the modified avionics, endless testing and overdoing engine runs, I finally run out of excuses to not to take off?

Last saturday in LEIG, Barcelona, (Spain) this new RV-12, EC-XMG climbed exceptionally well.

Though steering that rudder was smooth, my right knee couldn?t stop shaking until I saw 1000ft AGL in the altimeter. Once the adrenaline level let me breath normally again, I enjoyed every minute onboard.

What a pleasure!

http://youtu.be/LRpqR4eUyTc

Some more testing to go, and my transponder will start populating the monitors of the South-European controllers!!

Godo @Barcelona
s/n 120503