Thursday, April 16, 2009

Cold water on the Hotline?

I try to provide at least one new piece of original content when I publish the RV Builder's Hotline every other Saturday, but it's getting harder and harder to do. One is due out this week and I haven't started on yet.

Some weeks it's hard to get motivated.

I'd hoped to write something this week on RV airplane owners' experiences when doing their annual inspection. It seems to me that people who are building can learn a few things from people who are flying and this is one very important area.

There are 6,000 RVs flying, there are 2,000 subscribers to the Hotline, and another 2,000 read it online.

My solicitation for annual inspection experiences garnered all of two responses.

Guess I'll come up with a Plan B.

2 comments:

  1. Well, I didn't build, but I can tell you one big thing I would change it I ever did: I would use screws or air-locs instead of the hinge pins on the cowls. I hate dealing with those.

    I would also find a more accessible location for the vacuum pump filter. The guy that built mine hung it up on the cockpit side of the firewall, way up high where it requires painful contortions to get at.

    For the most part, though, there are inspection ports where they're needed, the hardest thing to do in the engine area is remove and clean the K&N air filter, and the rest of the airframe is easily inspected. My AP/IA actually enjoys the challenge of trying to find anything wrong each year.

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  2. Bob, I didn't respond to the annual question as it was terribly uneventful. The only thing I had to do beside a very careful inspection was a replacement of the tires and tubes after about 600 landings. Otherwise, the RV is a simple airplane devoid of a lot of the complication built into Pipers and Cessna's.
    Kev, RV7

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