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1979 Chino Airshow RV-3 doing aerobatics?

bruceh

Well Known Member
My recently deceased father left boxes and boxes of photos and slides. I started looking through them last weekend and found a bunch of photos he had taken at various air shows, the EAA museum (back before it was at Oshkosh), and local airports here in SoCal (Chino, Meadowlark, Santa Ana and Long Beach).

I ran across these 4 slides and I'm pretty sure that is an RV-3 doing aerobatics at the Chino Airshow. The date on the slides is May 1979.

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Anyone recognize the airplane and/or pilot? The slides aren't clear enough to read the registration number.

Edit: Looks like this might be the original: https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum/m...raft-collection-folder/1971-vans-rv-3---n17rv
 
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Sorry to hear about your Father, Bruce. Did he ever fly in your RV, or tell stories about RV’s at airshows? That definitely looks like N17RV, right down to the wheel pant on the tailwheel. I would have been 4 months old when those photos were taken, is it possible you were at that air show too?

P.S. I was at MARS in Santa Paula a few months ago picking up a Super Viking that was based at L18. According to ForeFlight we were like ships passing in the night that day and could have grabbed dinner! Who’d a thought?
 
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I have heard reports that Van flew the original RV-3 at airshows. I had a friend that had built an RV-3 while I was building my RV-6 a CNO. He reported that Van flew the RV-3 at the Chino during one of the air shows where he did a loop and a smaller loop on the top of the loop. He said he asked Van about how he did the little loop on the top of the big loop and reported that the answer was by using flaps on top of the loop.
 
I have heard reports that Van flew the original RV-3 at airshows. I had a friend that had built an RV-3 while I was building my RV-6 a CNO. He reported that Van flew the RV-3 at the Chino during one of the air shows where he did a loop and a smaller loop on the top of the loop. He said he asked Van about how he did the little loop on the top of the big loop and reported that the answer was by using flaps on top of the loop.

This from Van's article in the August 2016 issue of Sport Aviation:

VAN?S AIR SHOW ROUTINE
For more than 30 years I flew local and
regional air show performances in my RV-1,
RV-3, RV-4, RV-6, and RV-8. My interest in
flying air shows was primarily that of
enhancing kit sales by demonstrating their
aerobatic capabilities. It was a great experience,
and I savor many fond memories of those times.
During the majority of my time flying air
shows, my planes were not equipped with
inverted fuel and oil systems. This limited
me to mostly positive g maneuvers and
required a certain finesse to make rolling
maneuvers look good without starving the
engine. Normal routines included all of the
basic rolls, hesitation rolls, and loop maneuver
combinations. To highlight the
performance acumen of my planes, I
included some things like:
Loop within a loop: A large open loop
with a small tight loop (inverted to inverted)
at the top, followed by a large open downline.
Vertical 8: With a gravity-fed engine, this
consisted of a tight Immelmann turn followed
immediately by a loop, half-roll, and a
completion of the lower half-loop.
 
Sorry to hear about your Father, Bruce. Did he ever fly in your RV, or tell stories about RV?s at airshows? That definitely looks like N17RV, right down to the wheel pant on the tailwheel. I would have been 4 months old when those photos were taken, is it possible you were at that air show too?

P.S. I was at MARS in Santa Paula a few months ago picking up a Super Viking that was based at L18. According to ForeFlight we were like ships passing in the night that day and could have grabbed dinner! Who?d a thought?

Derek,
I definitely wasn't at the 1979 Chino Airshow. I think the first one I attended was in the early 80's. I was able to get my Dad up in my airplane just once. He was barely able to walk these last several years, and just getting him up, in and out of the RV-9A was the biggest challenge.

Here is my Dad, ready to go flying in the RV-9A.
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Too bad we weren't able to meet up when you were out here. Is the Viking your new family hauler?

So back to the Original Post, that is Van flying the RV-3. Very cool to know.
 
He said he asked Van about how he did the little loop on the top of the big loop and reported that the answer was by using flaps on top of the loop.
That's also the method used to do a vertical 8 in a Harvard (or T-6).
 
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