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Evolution of the RV10 Design?

jahoosafat

Active Member
I'm considering purchasing an RV10 on the used market. One of the things I'm thinking about is what it means for a plane to be a "2009" RV10 vs a "2014" vs a whatever year. Obviously, the SNEW and SMOH hours are crucial and may be related to age of the plane, but I'm asking a slightly different question here. The first RV10 flew in 2003. 2003-2017 is obviously a long time in terms of avionics developments, but that may not be the case for airframe and powerplant. So I'm curious about how the RV10 airframe and power plant have changed over the years. I think the standard engine has always been a Lycoming, with the current being a 260hp I/O-540. Have there been fuel consumption, features, and/or reliability changes with Lycomings over these years? With the exception of the advent of the Quickbuild version of the airframe kit, what has substantively changed over time in terms of design, materials, and/or electrical?

Cheers,
Jeff
 
The basic airframe kit has had a few small evolutionary changes but nothing that changes function, speed or efficiency. These are things like incorporation of the few SB driven changes, fuel valve change (longer handle shaft), fuel valve location change (lower in the tunnel) fuel system plumbing (fitting at the tunnel sides vs just a tubing exit), etc. The non-SB driven changes are really just minor improvements to the construction process (easier to fab fuel lines, easier to route rear seat heat SCAT in tunnel, etc).

That said, there are a LOT of after market additions/mods that can be incorporated now that weren?t available in the early days. This includes things like full electronic fuel injection and ignition, different fuel valve, different fuel pump(s), electric heat & oil door actuators, tunnel access panels, full interior finish kits, rear seat options, overhead consoles, air conditioning, higher capacity brakes, flush exterior door handles and pretty much anything else you can think of.

A Lycoming IO-540-D4A5 is the same today as it was decades ago as long as it is a stock engine (except for the shift from narrow deck to wide deck in the 1970s). Many replace one or both mags with electronic ignition and some replace the fuel injection system with electronic injection. Lots of chatter about HP differences based on dyno runs but little real world head to head performance data. Electronic ignition seems to get slightly better fuel economy, mainly from being able to run a bit more LOP than without it. 3 blade props seem to have a bit better climb performance and slightly lower top speed than the BA 2 blade Hartzell. You?d probably be hard pressed to find any RV-10 in the fleet that is measurably faster than others.

Vans originally planned to support a Continental IO360 (210 HP) in addition to the Lycoming parallel valve 540 but after a survey of early builders, the Continental was dropped as an option and no FWF kits were ever sold for it. The fleet consists mostly of Lycoming 540s but there have been at least 3-4 Chevy LS-1 conversions and at least 1 Suburu conversion. The Subie conversion (that I?m aware of) no longer exists and I believe that at least a couple of the LS-1 conversions were removed and replaced with Lycomings, I think there?s at least 1of the LS-1 conversions still flying though.
 
Hi Jeff,

It looks like you might be new to the experimental aircraft world - if that's not true, I apologize. The thing is, when people specify a year for a homebuilt, all it tells you is when it was completed. Folks from other activities tend to think of that as a "model year", the same as they would for cars - or certified airplane's, where Cessna or Piper might re-arrange the ash trays and cup holders once in awhile. But the basic airframe is still the same, year after year. For homebuilts, there is no standardization bewteeen builders, so the "year" of the airplane means nothing - except in teh grosest sense. For instance, an RV-6 finished in 1997 that still has an original panel isn't hoping to be equipped like one finished in 2015 (unless the 2015 builder was intentionally going Retro....). Later builders just have the opportunity to use newer stuff.

Bob has some great history in his post above - just remember that the basic airplane is pretty much unchanged. It's up to the buyer to figure out of the way it is equipped meets their purposes.
 
What Paul said, I probably muddied the waters with my original response. The ?year? is really when the airworthiness cert gets issued. It?s theoretically possible to have purchased an RV-10 kit in 2004 yet finish its construction and register it as a 2017 model. None of the minor changes Vans has made to the airframe kit do anything except incorporate Service Bulletin changes, minor tweaks to the kit to ease construction (very slightly) or possibly a manufacturing change because of part commonality between models.
 
To add to Bob's post.....

All of the SB's and plan changes are on Van's web site and are publicly available.
 
Re the build year ... Yup, I am new to experimental aviation, but as my use of quotes around "2009" and "2014" was meant to imply, I'm aware of the disjunct between kit year and year completed. Thanks for the great info!

Cheers,
Jeff
 
You might want to run your plans by an insurance agent familiar with the RV-10, just so there are no surprises. I recommend Gallagher (they advertise here) but there are others.
 
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