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Am I crazy? Building an RV-10

Chute

Weighs about 80 pounds and takes about half your baggage area. Be sitting down when you ask about thee price.

This has been discussed before but you need to sit down and weigh the potential advantages and disadvantages...and you need to be brutally honest about them.

There is one camp that believes the chute is a silver bullet and makes you impervious to harm.

Another camp says there is no real reason for it.

Still another camp that says there really isn?t a real reason unless you are flying over inhospitable terrain...or your spouse wants it.

In the end, as with all things in the EAB world, it is up to you and what you are comfortable with.
 
Weighs about 80 pounds and takes about half your baggage area. Be sitting down when you ask about thee price.

This has been discussed before but you need to sit down and weigh the potential advantages and disadvantages...and you need to be brutally honest about them.

There is one camp that believes the chute is a silver bullet and makes you impervious to harm.

Another camp says there is no real reason for it.

Still another camp that says there really isn?t a real reason unless you are flying over inhospitable terrain...or your spouse wants it.

In the end, as with all things in the EAB world, it is up to you and what you are comfortable with.

Cost, weight and space probably rule it out as a consideration for me, not to mention the time it must take to install. Thanks for the information!
 
It is heavy, takes up about 30-40% of the baggage area, and adds some ugly fairings under the doors that hide the front parachute straps.

If we lived somewhere flat, I probably would not be considering it given the cost, weight, etc.

However, our mission for the RV-10 when complete is to fly from Boulder CO to places like Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Telluride, Jackson Hole, etc. I've flown into a few of those in Diamond DA-40s for training, and I can tell you that there are very, very few places to safely land between airports. So, after long consideration, we decided to give up some weight and space in exchange for that safety factor of being able to get out of the sky in an emergency.

The fact that I'm the one building this plane, and maybe I made a tiny little mistake someplace on a shop head that could lead to catastrophic airframe destruction, simply compounded that math in favor of that margin of safety.
 
It is heavy, takes up about 30-40% of the baggage area, and adds some ugly fairings under the doors that hide the front parachute straps.

If we lived somewhere flat, I probably would not be considering it given the cost, weight, etc.

However, our mission for the RV-10 when complete is to fly from Boulder CO to places like Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Telluride, Jackson Hole, etc. I've flown into a few of those in Diamond DA-40s for training, and I can tell you that there are very, very few places to safely land between airports. So, after long consideration, we decided to give up some weight and space in exchange for that safety factor of being able to get out of the sky in an emergency.

The fact that I'm the one building this plane, and maybe I made a tiny little mistake someplace on a shop head that could lead to catastrophic airframe destruction, simply compounded that math in favor of that margin of safety.

I understand the decision based on terrain as you mentioned. If bad shop heads were that dangerous not too many RVs would be in the air. Haven't you watched some of Vic's webinars? (My tongue is as firmly in cheek as yours, don't worry). I'm a flatlander so no terrain worries for me. I've done one cross -country trip and flew "IFR" from SoCal to Texas (IFR = I follow road) - not exactly but my route stayed pretty close to I-10 most of the way).
 
Rationalization

"...The fact that I'm the one building this plane, and maybe I made a tiny little mistake someplace on a shop head that could lead to catastrophic airframe destruction, simply compounded that math in favor of that margin of safety..."

I hope that was TIC.

As another post has noted, if that were the case, there would not be many RVs flying.

Consider how many RVs have been built. Now consider the diverse backgrounds of all of the builders. Now consider the, in some cases, huge errors in building quality.

Take that data and consider how many RVs have had structural failure.

Van designed a series of aircraft that can and have been built by just about anyone and still maintain a comfortable safety margin.

If you seriously considered small building errors as a player in determining whether or not you wanted a chute, what makes you sure that those build errors did not occur when mounting the chute? TIC
 
Yeah, I was kidding. If I really thought a rivet or two would kill me, I wouldn't be doing this.

Having seen the terrain firsthand for the routes we intend to fly, both from the ground (driving and mountaineering) and the air, the parachute seemed like a safe choice.

I will be flying normally with either zero or one seat in the back, too, which means that I can replace the cargo space and some of the weight I'm giving up.
 
There are quite a few mods that most guys make, here are some:

planearound.com third door latch. It should be STANDARD on all -10's.

Billet trim cable mounts.

McMaster door seals.

Matco brakes. Berringer Brakes are really nice but 3x the price of the Matcos.

Cee Bailey windows and windscreen.

I used the Showplanes cowl and intake. If I were building another -10, I would look seriously at the showplaces fastback mod for the -10. Much nicer lines.

You will NOT have enough holes to run wiring to the panel. Plan on adding more.

SS firewall heat valves.

If considering a yaw damper, put the mount in. much easier to do early on.

Many, many more out there. I think there is a thread here that has a list.

If you are going to build the empennage kit, make SURE you modify the nose of the ribs, otherwise you will get "pimples" in your vertical stab skin when you put it together. Same can be said of horizontal stab, though not to the same extent.

Lots of great info on this forum and others!

Where is the list of popular mods for people building 10's from recent kits please? I want to bookmark it for easy reference
 
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