OSH meeting recap

We had a friendly group of about 8 people at the RV-3 meeting at AirVenture. After moving across the street to a shady spot under a tree we proceeded to introduce ourselves and talk about RV-3 issues. Lots of issues were covered with the final one being brought up by Tony Spicer... "pilot fluid management in an RV-3". Several methods were discused in detail with no specific concensus as to which method was preferrable.

We did agree on a few things: all RV-3 owners and/or builders should...

• Submit info for the RV-3 Registry, this data helps us all. Click here for info.
• Put up photo albums with lots of PICS, Randy will put links to them on the "Community" page at www.rv-3.com
• Let all other RV-3 builders know about the RV-3 forum (right here) on vansairforce.net so that all owners and builders are plugged in to the community and can exchange information.

Big news: EAA's Sport Aviation magazine will be running an article some time during the next year on the RV-3 resurgence. Kent Misegades is the writer given the assignment. Kent attended the meeting to learn more and get material for the article. I was asked to fly a photo mission with the EAA photo planes which I did Wednesday afternoon, pics to appear in the article.

Interesting anecdote: If you are reading this message then you probably already "get" the RV-3, but I flew home to Oregon with some friends in an RV-10. Trip factoid: the RV-10 holds 60 gallons of fuel and at the same speed & altitude as my RV-3 was buring just over 12 gph giving it an endurance of 5 hours. My RV-3B holds 29.4 gallons and burned an average of 5.8 gph under the same conditions giving me a range of 5.06 hours. Conclusion: the RV-10 and the RV-3B have the same range but at half the cost. Less is more!

It was very good to meet those who attended and put faces with names. Next year?

Ahhhh, but the -10 has you on seat mileage! And it actually costs four times as much for the -3 to do the same mission as the -10, 'cause you've gotta have one plane for each person. Come to think of it, the cost is really more than four times as much because the other three people have to get their license, stay current, etc., etc...........

I know I'm taking your point to ridiculous extremes. Just having fun with you. Truth be told, I'm secretly hoping Van gets ambitious and produces a matched-hole "-3C" kit. If he does, we'll have those of you at the forefront of the RV-3 Revival to thank.

Randy,

Wish I could have been there at the meeting! I was headed back to Kansas on Wednesday. But I did do my fair shair of lookin at both yours and Tony Spicer's -3s (apologies if you found drool on your plane) . Maybe next year

jrsites said:

Ahhhh, but the -10 has you on seat mileage! And it actually costs four times as much for the -3 to do the same mission as the -10, 'cause you've gotta have one plane for each person. Come to think of it, the cost is really more than four times as much because the other three people have to get their license, stay current, etc., etc...........

I know I'm taking your point to ridiculous extremes. Just having fun with you. Truth be told, I'm secretly hoping Van gets ambitious and produces a matched-hole "-3C" kit. If he does, we'll have those of you at the forefront of the RV-3 Revival to thank.

Click to expand...

Observations from Oshkosh:

The majority of RV-10's I saw had two people, and the majority of two place RV's had one person. That's a load factor of 50%. Sure death for an airline. The RV-3's were all running at 100%.

Tony

RV-3 Airlines!

"Where the only one responsible for lousy service is - YOU!"

Not having looked close, how is the -3 for baggage space? I know the -4 i'm (re)building will have the backseat setup for baggage most of the time.

osxuser said:

Not having looked close, how is the -3 for baggage space? I know the -4 i'm (re)building will have the backseat setup for baggage most of the time.

Click to expand...

The -3 has quite a good sized baggage compartment. Hard to get a sense of scale from a pic, but take a look at the pics of my baggage compartment on the Cockpit page of my web site. You do need to access it by folding the seatback forward, not quite as convenient as the baggage door on an RV-10.

All told I think the -3 is under-rated as a cross country machine. I just discovered that even with it's 29.4 gallon fuel capacity that it can have the same range as an RV-10. The cockpit is comfy and it has good baggage capacity for one. What's not to like? Get yourself a portable O2 system and you're good to go -- I made two legs going to OSH this year at 17,500' with a 40+ mph tailwind burning 4.9 gph and a 180 mph TAS, 234 mph groundspeed. I'll post a screen dump from my EFIS soon.

Check W&B

As Randy said, the RV-3 has plenty of baggage space for one person. But (as for any airplane) you need to check the weight and balance before loading up. For my RV-3 (old-school, fuselage mounted tank), 35# in the baggage area allows me 2 hours of fuel burn before reaching the aft CG limit. Each 2# reduction from 35# gives me 15 minutes more flight time (considering CG only).

Those numbers are conservative, assuming 8gal/hr burn rate and using the standard moment arm for the baggage area. They could be refined based on expected RPM/fuel burn and actual placement of weight in the baggage space.

30# of stuff was enough for me to camp in comfort for a week at Oshkosh this year, including a set of FlyTies tiedowns. Think like a backpacker - don't put any more weight in the RV-3 than you would want to carry all day. And 2.5hrs per leg was enough for me. After a refueling/dewatering break I was back up to 10k ft in less than 10 minutes, cruising in the cool air. Great airplane, and the only passenger you have to worry about is yourself.

...Joe

RV-3

If Vans would do the QB and the matched hole version of the 3.... oooooooh! I think they would sell like hotcakes!!! In these times of high gas and operating expenses, not to mention people wanting 300 a month for hangers or more in some places(I've seen the 400's!) this is the kit we need... lets make the wings removable like the 12 as well so we can keep it in the garage instead of having to keep it at the airport.
I would not mind making the -3 more tall pilot friendly as well.
Best
Brian
ps..everybody hassle Randy Lervold for more pics of his BEAUTIFUL-3!!