RV Maintenance Manual

As I build my RV-6 I am constantly thinking ahead to how I will maintain and inspect it in the future. The best time to consider continuing airworthiness is when a system or component is being fabricated. To that end, I keep notes to incorporate into a Maintenance Manual for my RV. There are POH's online by those who have taken the trouble to write a Flight Manual. Are there any RV-specific Maintenance Manuals online? I'd love to see an example of someone's content and format.

Rob Erdos

Maintenance Manual

Rob,

If you take a peek at the manual for our RV-4 that I've posted in the POH section of the site, you can see I included a maintenance portion. I included type specific information as well as general maintenance information that would be appropriate for an owner/operator (inspection schedules, checklists, etc.).

Most components (and certainly certified parts like engines, magnetos, carbs, etc.) have their own specific maintenance publications prepared by the manufacturer. It may be difficult to incorporate 100% up-to-date information in an "inclusive" single volume. And, even though we all fly "RV's," each airplane is unique, so a manual may limited "portability." One other point to ponder: I never limit my research to RV-4 only--I've found a great deal of helpful information by reviewing ALL of the different types. Undoubtedly, you're way ahead of me on this.

None of this intended to discourage you or posting the results of your efforts! We can all benefit when someone takes the time to write things down.

Best of luck,

Vac

The conditional inspections checklist threads can also be mined for very useful additions to what you're looking for.

Jeremy Constant

Vac,
Great and COMPLETE work on your POH. I didn't notice, but did you have to bump up your weight limit to carry it! haha!

I see you are in Niceville. My son in law was stationed at Hurlburt. They are now at Maxwell - he just got off a year deployment in Kabul. He is a JAG. We were there in Oct and March watching our grandson. What a nice place to live. A bit muggy in the summer, but the seafood is great!

Consider building a BoM as you go...

Toward the end of the construction of my -4, I started a Bill of Materials (BoM) for each part I added to the airframe. I have maintained it since and refer to it frequently. I record part number, manufacturer, serial number, supplier, install or manufacture date, etc. When a part fails (like my trim relay a couple of years ago) I have all the pertinent info without doing any disassembly; when Lycoming had a recall on a fuel pump, I was able to determine that it affected my engine as I had recorded the S/N in the BoM.