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RV-15 Specifications (updated 7/21 9pm CST w/ specs by dr)

JonJay said:
Per AI :
Faith is generally defined as a strong belief or trust in something or someone, often without requiring concrete proof. It can refer to belief in a higher power, a set of religious or philosophical principles, or even a deep-seated confidence in one's own abilities or the promises of others.
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Are we going to put our faith in AI :)
 
543TB said:
We looked at the Sportsman years ago at OSH. Tried to look, anyway. I guess we didn't appear to have deep enough pockets because the reps were barely interested in entertaining our questions or letting us see the aircraft. They wouldn't really give us a final price either. Ultimately, we decided the fuse construction didn't feel durable enough given the abuse we've seen metal planes absorb over the decades. And yes, the two week to taxi program seemed tailored to those better at signing checks than driving rivets. The 15 compares favorably on that front, for sure.
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No surprise on your experience. Glasair decided that there was a better market to sell (almost) flying airplanes to rich people who had money but no time to build. It worked for a while. Remember that the Sportsman was initially offered as a kit, then there was three week builder assist program that eventually was refined that into the two weeks to taxi thing. I remember their president boasting that they were taking on Cessna, which is similar to what I’ve read here about what Van’s wants to eventually do with the 15, target the traditional trainer market (nose gear?) and so forth. The MOSAIC win will provide opportunities for sure.

Van’s biggest asset is their builder base. With costs exploding, that’s more important than ever, so I hope that the plan retains a grass roots vibe and doesn’t become dependent on fewer wealthy patrons. The economic trajectory seems to be favoring the latter though.

Comments reveal that one of the main attractions to the RV15 is its cargo capacity. Even if there is no interest in flying into a “peaceful back country” airport that has 900 people camping on both sides of the runway, that there are pilots who are willing to give up a little cruise speed to be able to carry more gear. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to try to compete with all of those beat up 172’s and 182’s after all?
 
N8DAV8R said:
Yeah, that's about what I am expecting by doing the same estimation. Will fit much better in my 2 car garage. I was just hoping for some confirmation of how the wing/fuse interface is designed without making the assumption it's the same as every other strut based high wing.
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You can see what a loose wing panel looks like in this video:
 
sblack said:
I’m not sure why anyone is comparing the rv9 with the 15. Totally different missions and totally different payload and power requirements. Apples and turnips.
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Agreed 100%! I've always wondered about this comparison... people just fixate on numbers.
 
sblack said:
The RV15 will have way better handling qualities than the Sportsman. The Sportsman has a long wing and tiny ailerons and high aileron cable friction. So the roll forces are heavy and the response is slow. The tail is undersized, or perhaps it is that it is placed right down in the wing wake so pitch stability is weak (and on the glastar at least you run out of elevator in the flare hence the VGs all along the stab), so roll forces are high and pitch forces are low, which is backwards. Control harmony sucks.

The 15 will almost certainly have the well balanced responsive controls that we have come to expect. They took their time, hired a professional test pilot, tweaked and adjusted and tuned until they got it right. They won't have to glue all kinds of aero fixes to it like the glastar/sportsman (strakes, VGs, those shovel things) in order to try to overcome its shortcomings. Those guys didn't have the budget to resize the tail or redesign the wing - they were stuck with what they had. I'm sure I'll get flamed by the glastar people and it's predictable. Everyone loves their airplane and they get used to what they fly a lot. And it's a pretty airplane and fast and has a good load. But any objective assessment by someone who has a handling qualities background will find these shortcomings obvious.
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Very true about the flying qualities. The Sportsman flies a bit like a Cessna with some additional compromises, while the RV will hopefully be light and nimble, as an RV should be. Also to note regarding any airplane used for short runways, is how well/safe the airplane flies slow...sounds like Van's has made this a priority from day one. We can all fixate on that one number, but the important thing will be how approachable that number is.
 
sblack said:
You can't just add slats like fender flares on a car. Slats increase the stall AoA. To be able to use that you need a higher ground attitude or you need to change the wing incidence. Otherwise they won't work. You see planes with slats added on at the Osh and SnF stol demos and on takeoff they are planting the tailwheel trying desperately to magically increase the ground attitude to get the benefit of the slats but they can't. They might as well not even have them. Then you might, depending on the margin you have, need to increase the tail area to be able to get to the higher AoA at fwd CG. If the tail was oversized to begin with maybe not, but the RV15 will be pretty optimized because these guys know what they are doing. So adding slats will be pretty useless. That's not to say that people won't try it of course.
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Nice, quick lesson on aerodynamics! It's one of those concepts that is obvious after it's pointed out, but I certainly wouldn't have thought about it on my own.

But I think you just answered a question that I didn't even know was bothering me. You just explained why the Fi 156 Storch had such ridiculously tall landing gear -- it was to give the wing a high enough AoA on the ground for the slats to be useful. Thanks again!
 
sblack said:
The RV15 will have way better handling qualities than the Sportsman. The Sportsman has a long wing and tiny ailerons and high aileron cable friction. So the roll forces are heavy and the response is slow. The tail is undersized, or perhaps it is that it is placed right down in the wing wake so pitch stability is weak (and on the glastar at least you run out of elevator in the flare hence the VGs all along the stab), so roll forces are high and pitch forces are low, which is backwards. Control harmony sucks.

The 15 will almost certainly have the well balanced responsive controls that we have come to expect. They took their time, hired a professional test pilot, tweaked and adjusted and tuned until they got it right. They won't have to glue all kinds of aero fixes to it like the glastar/sportsman (strakes, VGs, those shovel things) in order to try to overcome its shortcomings. Those guys didn't have the budget to resize the tail or redesign the wing - they were stuck with what they had. I'm sure I'll get flamed by the glastar people and it's predictable. Everyone loves their airplane and they get used to what they fly a lot. And it's a pretty airplane and fast and has a good load. But any objective assessment by someone who has a handling qualities background will find these shortcomings obvious.
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This is an interesting observation. Unfortunately it's at odds with my experience with the Sportsman so I'm left wondering ... I've been fortunate to fly a decent number of different aircraft thus I have a fair bit of comparative experience. Maybe I'm missing something. EDIT to add that it does fly somewhat like a Cessna rather than having a much sportier feel. I dunno how sporty one really wants the airplane to feel - that seems a matter of subjective/individual preference.

Yes, the Glastar originally had fairly high aileron force, but addition of an aileron servo tab fixes that pretty easily (it's standard equipment on the Sportsman). I haven't yet seen evidence of weak pitch stability and I've flown the aircraft at all the corners of the W&B box. I guess I'm missing something.

As for the "shovel things", I was demonstrating to a flight instructor just this week how the aircraft remains responsive in roll while the wing is stalled. The "shovel things" actually work pretty well. You are right, they are an add-on, as are the strakes ahead of the horizontal stabilizer which act as flow splitters/directors to keep the tail active at higher angles of attack. The smoothness and roundness of the empennage cross section seems to have been the bugaboo when it came to aerodynamics - air wanted to flow around the tail boom rather than along it. Still, in its current configuration the airplane can have amphib floats installed without adding any other ventral fins, flow fences etc on the tail so it does pretty well in standard configuration.

The comment about VG's all along the horizontal stabilizer is a little off-putting. These would be Glastars, not Sportsman (typically) with VG's under the tail. That's because the Glastar tends to be nose-heavy while the Sportsman tends to be tail-heavy. Take an airplane (the Glastar) originally designed for an O-240 and stick an IO360 and heavy constant speed prop on it and this is what happens. I'm sure somebody will do some similar "hot rodding" of the RV15 and will have to make some alterations to the Vans design in order to accommodate them safely. All we have to do is look at the Lockwood RV9/Rotax and we can see how much an engine change impacts the rest of the airplane.

You are absolutely right that Glasair didn't have the budget to do massive re-design once the Glastar prototype was built, but they did find ways to make the aircraft very viable. On the other hand, Vans has spent a whole lot of time reworking the RV15 tail. I suspect this makes it pretty clear that designing the tail section may be one of the greater challenges aerodynamicists face in making an airplane that flies well.

For those who comment about the Two Weeks To Taxi program, please do keep in mind that many Sportsman aircraft were built the long slow way from a kit that came in a giant wooden box. I know mine was and, despite having been built by this inept person, it still makes its "as designed" performance numbers.

With all this having been said, Vans is in the fortunate position of having the luxury of taking years to get the product to market. Ultimately the RV15 will be a more seasoned design when it finally gets into customer hands. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing a production-representative aircraft because I think it's going to be one heck of a good aircraft that will have benefitted hugely from previous model experience and tons of feedback from a very active builder community. The day the RV15 is fully released to customers will be a good day for aviation.
 
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Curious what these “shovel things” are….. My Glastar has the aileron servo tab, and the strakes in front of the horizontal. No VGs on the underside of the horizontal. But that’s about all….
 
dbhill916 said:
Nice, quick lesson on aerodynamics! It's one of those concepts that is obvious after it's pointed out, but I certainly wouldn't have thought about it on my own.

But I think you just answered a question that I didn't even know was bothering me. You just explained why the Fi 156 Storch had such ridiculously tall landing gear -- it was to give the wing a high enough AoA on the ground for the slats to be useful. Thanks again!
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Ya the Storch was designed with slats from the beginning so everything is optimized - heat, incidence, tail size. Also you will notice at those demos that there is an UL of some sort, perhaps it’s a chinook. On takeoff it goes straight up. No takeoff roll to speak of. Of course it is light and probably has an engine that is screaming on the edge of disintegration but also he has cranked up the wing incidence considerably so he can get to near stall AoA without the tail touching. In cruise he’s probably several deg nose down but it’s a purpose built stol plane so who cares. So that’s the other way to get slats to work, but then you are really messing with primary structure. So bolting slats on without fully integrating them into the design is a dead end.
 
Speaking to them at OSH Friday it sounded like they’ll likely move the wing back 4” and slope the windscreen more. Wondering if it’ll change the baggage area (It’s already huge, so no big deal if they do).
 
People having small hangar like me should pay a lot of attention to the elevator wingspan. This thing is huge ! it's almost 13 feet on the actual design.
 
JMStone said:
They stated at Osh that they intend to offer their own float design as a kit.
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Thanks I’ll call them. I’m confused if that means you can retrofit or it has to be made from the beginning. Can’t really retrofit a skywagon once they’re made without a float kit.
 
I agree that 15 and the Sportsman are very similar in several ways, specifically performance wise. Cruise about the same, stall about the same…….
But there’s a huge difference, they don’t build the same. Other than the obvious materials difference, from what I gather, the 15 is going to be a speedy build, a good deal of the (higher) cost for the 15 is no doubt due to this. The easier you make it, the more successful it’s going to be, balancing budget dynamics of course. IMO, this is one of the reasons RV’s are so successful. Back when they weren’t so easy to build, builders support was amazing! (Still could be amazing, I just haven’t called into builders support for about 15 years)
Is the 15 going to be a success, I bet ya a beer it will be for all the reasons already stated.

Side note, composite planes in the backcountry aren’t too common, I wanna see the dent the rock made before the stress fracture fatigues the carbon to the breaking point.
 
N208ET said:
I agree that 15 and the Sportsman are very similar in several ways, specifically performance wise. Cruise about the same, stall about the same…….
But there’s a huge difference, they don’t build the same. Other than the obvious materials difference, from what I gather, the 15 is going to be a speedy build, a good deal of the (higher) cost for the 15 is no doubt due to this. The easier you make it, the more successful it’s going to be, balancing budget dynamics of course. IMO, this is one of the reasons RV’s are so successful. Back when they weren’t so easy to build, builders support was amazing! (Still could be amazing, I just haven’t called into builders support for about 15 years)
Is the 15 going to be a success, I bet ya a beer it will be for all the reasons already stated.

Side note, composite planes in the backcountry aren’t too common, I wanna see the dent the rock made before the stress fracture fatigues the carbon to the breaking point.
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Having owned (with others) a Sportsman, there is a lot to be said for the general concept of an IO-390 powered STOL with “two seats and lots of room.” It’s a truly great airplane. Agree it’s not really optimized though. Composite fuselage isn’t really ideal, and the folding wings and ability to switch from taildragger to nose dragger add complexity and fussiness that most people don’t need. And the folding function makes the wing roots are drafty as hell. 😅
 
Average guy said:
anyone know if they have have step ups so can fuel by standing on the tire and climbing up?
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This is just based on the conversations had with Brian while he was standing at the left door, because I'm short, but it sounds like there should be a cabin step but no step for fueling. But it is experimental so if they don't make one as part of their design, I can't imagine it will be hard to add one alà the 180 step kit from AD.
 
I’m new to experimental aircraft. So I can add my own fuel steps legally? Earlier people were talking about no backseats, can you add seats? Like Atlee Dodge or LakeVue or similar. That seems like a stretch to me.
 
Average guy said:
I’m new to experimental aircraft. So I can add my own fuel steps legally? Earlier people were talking about no backseats, can you add seats? Like Atlee Dodge or LakeVue or similar. That seems like a stretch to me.
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Yes, since it is experimental you can do whatever you want. However, the lack of rear seats has been discussed extensively already here on VAF, and what you're going to find is that the cabin really isn’t tall enough n back to allow seats for adults. The RV-15 was designed to be a two-seater (with lots of cargo space), so any people in back are going to be treated like cargo.
 
Finley Atherton said:
Interesting comparison to the RV 9.

RV 15 stall less than 45 knots. RV 9 stall 43.5 knots at gross (38 knots solo).
RV 15 cruise 140 knots. RV 9 75% cruise 163 knots.
RV 15 take off and land less then 400 ft. RV 9 gross weight take off 475 ft, land 450 ft. (300 ft and 300 ft solo).

What’s all the fuss about??? (tongue firmly in cheek)
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Finley Atherton said:
You didn't mention the useful load of a 15 is a lot more than a 9 and carries a lot more gas.
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Gregmarlow said:
Anyone know about the cargo door location on the 15?
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Talking to Brian Hickman about it at OSH last year he said where the decal is at on the prototype is roughly where the baggage door will be. However, he went on to describe a larger baggage door that would curve with the fuselage and allow you to reach in from the top when open. Wether that happens or not, we'll see.
 
Utah-Jay said:
Rans shortened the wing on the S-21 (I flew the original 30’ wing) and they got faster, but of course lost lift. We all know more lift allows for a slower stall. I bet Vans shortens the wing from the “original” RV-15 that was previously at OSH. The -15 gear is groundbreaking, shortening the wing for more speed seems counter to a STOL type landing gear system. I hope they keep the wing length.
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Actually it didn’t really improve the stall speed, but slowed down roll. My first S21 was the first production unit. They were still experimenting a bit, but the numbers were pretty close to Randy’s predictions.
 
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