Just re-located to the US (New Jersey) and I'm considering building a VANs airplane and looking for someone near by who built his own airplane and would love to come see it and get some pointers.
Man, sounds like you drew the short straw on this one.. well, welcome to NJ i guess -- the Garden State, or the armpit of America, your choice.
I'm almost done with my rv-12iS build at Old Bridge airport (3n6), come on down and I'll show you around. Theres another -12 builder in Ocean (basement building), and completed -12's at Monmouth Exec (kblm), Sky Manor, and at Old Bridge that i know of.
Welcome, don't waist your time with the RV-12 Homebuilt Help DVD's as they are mostly out of date for the RV12iS. I know because I have them all. They are great for the RV-12 Classic about 80% is applicable. For the RV-12iS about 40% may apply. The Wings and the tail mostly but there are some differences now.
EAA offers a weekend course teaching the basics of RV building ?- mostly rudimentary riveting skills.i found it very useful having built only fiberglass an tube-and-rag previously.
I started in July 2017 and took a break from Dec 2017-Apr 2018 and again from Jan 2018-Mar 2018. And from July-Oct 2019, I'll classify my activity as "lazy". (so 26 months so far with 8 of those off and 3-4 months of being lazy (ie. showing up to the airport for 3 hours in a week).
I'm pretty much done and just awaiting the arrival of the avionics kit. All other optional kits are finished. I also spent a lot of time sanding/etching/priming many internal surfaces which added a lot of time (maybe 25% more time).
I expect to be done by the end of this year.. So 2.5 years.. which could have been 2 or less. I worked most weekends, and a few days after work..say 6pm-9pm.
Welcome, don't waist your time with the RV-12 Homebuilt Help DVD's as they are mostly out of date for the RV12iS. I know because I have them all. They are great for the RV-12 Classic about 80% is applicable. For the RV-12iS about 40% may apply. The Wings and the tail mostly but there are some differences now.
My -12iS empennage/tail cone kit will be arriving in a couple of weeks. I agree with David regarding the evolution of the kit since the Homebuilt Help DVDs were produced. Nevertheless, I would be interested in purchasing a used but working set of the DVDs for the empennage/tail cone and wing kits only. Maybe one of you that has these would want to recoup some of that investment. I believe they can still help me with some of the upfront learning curve. While building, I certainly intend to follow the provided KAI explicitly.
I also have a 12IS build in progress. Working on it in Teterboro. I started an empennage kit at the beginning of this year but came across a deal for an empennage and fuselage already completed. So I got that and am just about to order my finishing kit.
I started to build my original RV-12 (classic) in July of 2014. I complete the Wings, Empennage, and Fuselage by July 2017. Then Van's threw me a curve ball. They came out with the RV-12iS in 2017. It was said that Vans would never offer the RV-12 with the Rotax 912iS. So why would I think that this would ever be an option. So after a very hard sole search and a trip to OSH. I decided to sell my Fuselage which I did to a nice pilot in Canada. The Wings and the Empennage from the Classic where able to be modified to conform to the iS standard. So I got the New RV-12iS Fuselage and built it. Fast forward to today over 5 years later and my RV-12iS is almost 100% complete and ready to run, installing the aft window right now then ready for FAA Airworthiness inspection.
Yes Jim I sure do, I remember that time very well. But as they say "no use crying over spilled milk" I am very much looking forward to doing the O-H, I-O fly in circuit next year. Should have the FAA Airwothness inspection completed by this January.
