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RV Myth Busted

N941WR

Legacy Member
Yesterday we flew out for lunch and while on the ramp, I spoke to a gentleman who flew his Cherokee in for lunch.

We were discussing my RV and how he would like to build an RV-14. The reason was that he lives in the metro DC area and the cost of mechanics and his annual was driving him out of the Piper.

He thought the solution would be to build an RV-14 because of the wing. He figured that he could simply remove the wings every annual and bring the plane home to perform the condition inspection then trailer it back to the airport.

When I mentioned the wings weren’t designed for removal, he didn’t believe me. He mentioned that they mount in the same fashion as the RV-10 and were designed for easy installation. While true, I said, they are designed for one installation with one time use $20 NAS bolts. He thought that the cost of the bolts would save him money but didn’t seem to understand that repeated installation and removal of said bolts would not be a good thing.

I then added that he will most likely have to remove the HS to tow it down the road and that would require the removal of the VS but the elevators and rudder would have to come off first.

The guy looked at me like I had two heads.

This makes me wonder how many other RV Myths are out there.
 
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Would take longer to remove and install wings than the inspection .
 
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Whenever someone asks me if I can remove the wings on my 7:

"The most likely way these wings are coming off? Two appropriately spaced trees..." :rolleyes:
 
Maintenance cost and quality

These were two principle reasons for jeanine and I deciding to build an experimental so I could gat a repairman certificate and do the maintenance and annual inspections. We built our RV-6A sold the Piper Archer II that we owned for 22 years (and loved by the way) when it was finished. That worked out very well.

No doubt there are a lot of misconceptions among non builder pilots but this one seems sort of extreme. This is an example of a day dream believer that seems kind of harmless BUT what about all of the RV work in process misconceptions around the world.

Bob Axsom
 
Why would he go through all that work? How long does the condition inspection take? And why doesn't he do it at the airport?
 
Why would he go through all that work? How long does the condition inspection take? And why doesn't he do it at the airport?


He doesn't have a hangar and feels like he is getting ripped off when dealing with a mechanic.
 
You get what you pay for. Sometimes a trained and qualified mechanic is THE way to go (for me at least).
 
Wings and myths

I learned to fly at a gliding club, where one of the two seat trainers was a Krosno KR0-3A Puchatek. Krosno eventually went under and sold the design and jigs to Barry Aviation in Florida, who renamed it the "Peregrine" and totally failed to build any, but that's another story :)

So anyway, about 1/3rd of the way between the fuselage and wingtip on each wing was a wing skin lap joint. It's covered in filler and painted over from the factory so you don't notice it on a new glider, but after it's spent a few years out in the sun absorbing UV the filler cracks a bit, and it looks like there's a chordwise "seam" wrapped around the wing.

We had a visitor to the airfield who was taking his first glider flight, and while we were preflighting it he asked about the seam. "What's that for?"

The guy standing next to me, without missing a beat and with a totally straight face, said, "It's for when we fly them off aircraft carriers. You've seen all those war movies where the planes are lined up on the deck with the wings folded up? They fold along that line."

"Ah," the guest nodded, brimming with newfound understanding.

The funniest thing was that the whole club got in on the joke, and by the end of the day everyone was telling straight-faced stories about how hard it is to find oceanic thermals, launching with shock cord attached to the steam catapult, flying while wearing wetsuits and scuba gear in case of an off-airport landing, and using submersibles to aid sea bottom retrievals. I think the visitor left at the end of a fun day of gliding genuinely believing that gliders flew on aircraft carriers.

The grand Aussie tradition of "taking the p**s." :)

- mark
 
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I don't see it as an RV myth so much as I see it as a Certified myth. He's not bound to those high priced shops that want to bend him over throughout the year, and he obviously wants to do the work. Why didn't you push the owner assist option? He sounds like a perfect fit.
 
Wings

I am building an 8 and plan to get many years of flying enjoyment out of it , I am an A&P with a few IA buddies .i look foward to maintaining a "new airplane". Having worked on an assortment of airplanes , the expensive annuals come after 4 or 5 previous cheap ones. You can look at the log book and see it ,compression check ,clean sparkplugs , change oil , return to service . 5 years of that **** catches up especially on 40year old aircraft .
Removable wings like the 12 are pretty cool , I like the Onex folding wing design ,but the kit does not compare to Vans ,in alum quality (2024 vs 6061 ), hardware, and all the little bits that make it a complete kit .
My next RV will be the new RV15 , folding wing , electric ,single seat , aerobatic , slow build . I just ordered the preview plans !
 
Just as an aside.....

the kit does not compare to Vans ,in alum quality (2024 vs 6061 ),

There's absolutely nothing with 6061 as long as the aircraft is designed around it. It is slightly not as strong as 2024, but it is MUCH more corrosion resistant and considerably cheaper.

Many 6061 aircraft have been flying in Canada for years, unpainted and stored outside.
 
There's absolutely nothing with 6061 as long as the aircraft is designed around it. It is slightly not as strong as 2024, but it is MUCH more corrosion resistant and considerably cheaper.

Many 6061 aircraft have been flying in Canada for years, unpainted and stored outside.

Is that a myth or fact?...............:D
 
Thanks for the info!

All:

I'd like to introduce myself to your community - I am the gentleman mentioned in the original post.

First of all, I'd like to thank Bill R. for the time he spent with me explaining the RV-14 and RV-10 features and limitations. I'm grateful for the detailed explanation of how the RVs are put together and what some of the things are that I should take into account when planning for construction and maintenance.

I took a few minutes to admire your RV on the ramp at Ocracoke - it's a beautiful machine and it's obvious that a great deal of care and skill went into its construction. I hope you get to enjoy flying it for many years to come!

My wife and I co-own our Cherokee, and have based it in Manassas since we bought it (in 2000 or so). I've been fortunate to get hooked up with a small network of folks who help me keep costs in line by performing owner-assisted annuals. I've worked on the annuals with my IA since we got the airplane. We're also fortunate that there's an active EAA chapter on the airport (EAA186). Their members are also very supportive of any GA aircraft based there.

Basing an aircraft in the DC area can be challenging, primarily due to access, cost, and airport issues. The aircraft population in Manassas has been steadily decreasing since 9/11 - all I have to do is walk the ramp to see the many vacant tie-down spaces where aircraft used to be. I chose to base at Manassas primarily because it keeps my commute to the airport in the range of 30-40 minutes (worse in traffic). Moving to a more GA-friendly airport would require a drive of over 1 hour one-way, so this would naturally have an impact on my ability to actually ever visit and fly the aircraft. I suppose this is part of the price we pay for the privilege of living and working in this area...

My wife has been encouraging me to start work on a homebuilt/experimental aircraft pretty much since we started flying - I think she knows it's something I've always wanted to do, and I rather suspect she's interested in the faster speeds (spend less time in the airplane to go places) you can get with pretty much any of the RV series when compared to our Cherokee. I'm still at the "which airplane to build" stage and am of course very interested in the RVs as they have a great reputation, and I always see many RVs at any of the EAA events. If I had an easy way to perform major maintenance on the aircraft besides at our increasingly GA-unfriendly airport, it would be a nice bonus - therefore my interest in folding-wing/removable-wing designs. I've always known that the RVs aren't known for this particular characteristic, but I was hoping that the RV-14 would be different, based on early reviews I read of the aircraft.

Thanks again for the opportunity to learn more about the RVs, and I hope to see you again down at Ocracoke someday!

Regards,
-Martin Hobson
Cherokee 180 (and homebuilder wannabee)
 
Martin,
Welcome to VAF! I live just down the road from you in Dumfries (Montclair) and I'm one the CH 186 guys building an RV-10. I'm heading out of town tomorrow on business for a few weeks, but when I get back you have an open invite to come over and look at my 10 project and see up close the details like the wing attach arrangement and whatnot.

You can e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll shoot you my contact info.
 
Martin,

Welcome to the VAF! I was hoping you would visit the site and see that post. No slight was intended, when I wrote it. Your questions were very good and pointed. It was obvious you were looking into the RV's. Heck, you even knew what an RV-14 was and that its wing attachment was similar to the RV-10 and that that was different than the other RV's.


By all means, take advantage of Todd?s offer and your local EAA chapter. You will learn so much just by visiting other projects, regardless if they RV?s or OTRV (Other Than RV).

While I really enjoy our RV-9, as you can see, my son is about to outgrow the baggage compartment. Thus, you might want to take a serious look at the RV-10. It has a LOT more room than even the RV-14 and is just as fast as the two seaters, if not faster.

Feel free to post any question you may have here on the forum, but please use the search function first. There is a LOT of good information on this forum!
 
Welcome to VAF Martin! You can not go wrong with ANY RV all models serve their missions and are pure pleasure to fly. Very, very affordable maintenance.
 
Martin,

Welcome to the forums about the Van's Aircraft family of people and airplanes.

Please, come visit me over at St. Mary's Airport (2W6). It's about a 30 minute flight for you from Manassas. I can get you up in our company RV-10, let you fly it a bit then sit for a while and talk RVs.

Email me at [email protected] or call me at 240-427-8847.
 
Hello, Martin.

The great thing about building is that you can have the repairman certificate to do the yearly conditional inspections yourself.
But even if you don't get the repairman certificate, you can still do all your own maintenance. You would just need an A&P to sign off the conditional inspection.

I do all my own maintenance and can sign off my conditional inspection, but being that I didn't build the engine, I usually pay the local A&P $200 to come over for the engine check while I am inspecting the rest of the plane.

When inspecting the wings there are only 6 inspection plates to remove from the bottom of the wing and then the wing root cover. Total time to R&R and inspect would only take one hour.

Kent
 
Is that a myth or fact?...............:D

There's absolutely nothing with 6061 as long as the aircraft is designed around it. It is slightly not as strong as 2024, but it is MUCH more corrosion resistant and considerably cheaper.

Many 6061 aircraft have been flying in Canada for years, unpainted and stored outside.

That's a fact!

Just to clarify, that is compared to unclad (bare) 2024 vs 6061. That is why 2024 is almost alway clad in AC applications.

Untimate tensile strength of 6061T6 is ~ 42K psi vs 2024T3 is ~62K psi. So you could say 2024 is ~32% stronger in tensile. However, 2024 is harder and more prone to cracking, so that isn't thoe whole story. The designer accounts for the strength of the material in the plan, so the only penalty of 6061 is weight.
 
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