WingedFrog

WingedFrog

Well Known Member
I guess that VANs does have it but does not want to release it with good reasons. I am wondering if anybody has gone through the pain of scanning the document? I am tired of carrying my instruction book between workshop and home. Reading some posts requires sometimes to have a look at the plans. Electronic version would also come handy for updating but mainly would ease communication online among builders.
 
JP,

Haven't heard of any on-line plans, except for the ones Van's has updated and placed on their website. What I did was each time I received a new subkit I took the plans to my local PostNet store, and had them make a reduced copy on legal size paper, and bind it into a "book". Then kept that copy by my computer in the house.

JP
 
Most of those places can scan the pages and put it on a CD just as easy I think, will have to check that out. How many pages are we talking about here?
 
DonFromTX said:
Most of those places can scan the pages and put it on a CD just as easy I think, will have to check that out. How many pages are we talking about here?
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My goal would be to have the complete package and I have no idea how many pages it has. Indeed in some instances it would be helpful to have access to the documentation ahead of the kits/instructions deliveries (one case that comes to mind is the wings/fuselage fitting but I'm sure there are other cases in addition to just being able to follow discussions here that are ahead of one's build process). Another interesting feature of having an electronic copy is that you could improve it with the copies of the postings of interest and relevant to a specific page/section as they happen rather that digging them out later when you get there in your built (and which you will likely never do anyway!).
Depending on the final scanning cost, I would be willing to share the scanning costs if we find enough builders to bring this cost to about $20-$30 range (currently there are several hundreds of builders, is we get just a fraction like 50 of them interested this price range should be reachable).This is all under the assumption that it would not infringe on VANs copyrights and therefore I would not be in favor of sharing the electronic copy with non RV-12 builders. As builders I believe we are free to make copies of the documents we pay for whatever way we organize to do it. This is just IMHO, please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
WingedFrog said:
My goal would be to have the complete package and I have no idea how many pages it has. Indeed in some instances it would be helpful to have access to the documentation ahead of the kits/instructions deliveries (one case that comes to mind is the wings/fuselage fitting but I'm sure there are other cases in addition to just being able to follow discussions here that are ahead of one's build process). Another interesting feature of having an electronic copy is that you could improve it with the copies of the postings of interest and relevant to a specific page/section as they happen rather that digging them out later when you get there in your built (and which you will likely never do anyway!).
Depending on the final scanning cost, I would be willing to share the scanning costs if we find enough builders to bring this cost to about $20-$30 range (currently there are several hundreds of builders, is we get just a fraction like 50 of them interested this price range should be reachable).This is all under the assumption that it would not infringe on VANs copyrights and therefore I would not be in favor of sharing the electronic copy with non RV-12 builders. As builders I believe we are free to make copies of the documents we pay for whatever way we organize to do it. This is just IMHO, please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Frog - I'm up for this, I reckon it would be very useful.

Cheers

Erik
 
Van's will sell you a paper set of the plans for a bit over $200. Obviously, no copyright issues.

The plans sets sent to each builder are up to date at the time of packing. That means that one set of plans might not be applicable to someone else's airplane. And if you're serious about copying them and sharing them, you really ought to ask Van's if they're in favor of that.
 
David Paule said:
And if you're serious about copying them and sharing them, you really ought to ask Van's if they're in favor of that.
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That's what I was thinking. If you're sure that Van's would have no problem with this then there should be no problem in asking them. And if you are afraid that the answer might not be what you want to hear, then maybe.....;)
 
Drawings

WingedFrog said:
I guess that VANs does have it but does not want to release it with good reasons. I am wondering if anybody has gone through the pain of scanning the document? I am tired of carrying my instruction book between workshop and home. Reading some posts requires sometimes to have a look at the plans. Electronic version would also come handy for updating but mainly would ease communication online among builders.
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I had van send me the wing and the fuselage drawings with my empennage kit, this helps me see where I'm going. I added the text to my web site to help me look ahead when I?m not at home. I also scanned the drawing one half of a page at a time and put them in a three ring binder so when you open the book you have a full page. I made two Sets one for the shop to make notes on and one in the house to read ahead.
 
WingedFrog said:
Another interesting feature of having an electronic copy is that you could improve it with the copies of the postings of interest and relevant to a specific page/section as they happen rather that digging them out later when you get there in your built (and which you will likely never do anyway!).
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Sounds like a great idea, in principle. However, I'm guessing Van's would break out in hives if they heard their plans were being modified based on advice from the internet (even given the high quality of most VAF posts).
 
Alan Carroll said:
Sounds like a great idea, in principle. However, I'm guessing Van's would break out in hives if they heard their plans were being modified based on advice from the internet (even given the high quality of most VAF posts).
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What I have in mind is not modifications of the plans but improvement of the instructions with pictures (i.e., from builders web sites), comments and discussion from VAF forum on specific sections/pages/steps of the manual, all regrouped and sorted so that when you start a new section you have everything at hand. The advantage of the electronic copy is that it's easier to update and organize as well as distribute and look-up. For example you can insert references to builders' sites specific pages in the form of links.
As long as there is no physical change to the instruction manual, this is nothing more than a compilation of information available throughout this site and on builders' blogs (including disclaimers like this one: http://martysrv12.blogspot.com/2008/01/disclaimer.html).
I admit that this is all a big task but there are enough builders and future builders of RV-12 that it could be done cooperatively by spreading the effort.
I will start the fuselage in a few weeks and will try to do just that on the go. I also plan to make it available through my blog as a trial.
 
Binding

For the set of plans I bought from Van's, I had them spiral-bound locally. They were bound in related sections. For example, sections 6 through 12 are together.

While this makes them easily accessible it might be enhanced if they'd been printed on only one side instead of the two-sided printing actually used. Maybe that could be requested at time of ordering, but it would certainly be a stack of paper!
 
RV7 scanned to PDF

A friend of mine scanned his entire RV7 plans book to PDF format. Its superb! High quality images too - something like 300 dpi - and get this: the text is searchable!

Not sure if copying to PDF infringes on the copyright, but we're quite certain vans wouldn't approve of any transfer to a third party.
 
WingedFrog said:
What I have in mind is not modifications of the plans but improvement of the instructions with pictures (i.e., from builders web sites), comments and discussion from VAF forum on specific sections/pages/steps of the manual, all regrouped and sorted so that when you start a new section you have everything at hand. The advantage of the electronic copy is that it's easier to update and organize as well as distribute and look-up. For example you can insert references to builders' sites specific pages in the form of links.
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I think you're right that this would be a great resource, so long as it is clearly identified as separate from Van's plans.
 
videos, photos, etc.

When Ken Krueger spoke in San Luis Obispo a couple weeks ago, he tossed around the idea of an electronic plans set. I'm not sure it's exactly what's being suggested here, but I think it would still be helpful. I think the general idea is, among other things, to provide animations of solid models of the assemblies going together. I mentioned to him that when I was building my -7, Dan Checkoway still had his website up, and the detailed pictures made visualizing the assemblies a lot easier. He said he would go back and discuss the idea of Van's providing detailed build photos as a resource in the future, as well.

It looks like they've laid a lot of ground work to provide these resources with the RV-12. Hopefully they start becoming available soon.

Paul
 
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