RV-12 OSH Update!

Just arrived at OSH in RV12 N1212K. Landed at 154pmct. They closed OSH at 215pmct for the Air show. Left KDTO at 6AMct stopped twice. Weather was great all the way. Flying time in route was 6hrs 30 mins, total fuel burned 35gals. Average Ground speed was 120kts. It was a geeat flight and the 12 performed flawlessly. Actually got to talk to Vans himself late in the afternoon. I plan on attending Vans Big dinner tomorrow night. Right now I could only find 4 other RV12s on the field, N120R, N369JB, N912VZ, & N903RV. Will try to take some Pics of them tomorrow. Also Vans Red and Blue are here. Here is mine.



John
RV12 N1212K

More on RV12s at OSH!

Day two here at OSH and there are now 5 RV12s that I can find. Pics to follow. Tonight was the Vans Dinner bash! There were over 300 attendees at the dinner. Weather was great all day, but rain is on the way. You can see it coming in on the evening local radar. One RV12 that we saw was a EAB see this one:


Here are some more:




Here what it looked like on the city bus going to the dorms at the local University where we are sleeping this evening:


Heres what you might see while coming back to your room, a guy in the lobby flying a small RC Plane:



What an interesting place OSH is. Lunch tomorrow and Meet and greet at Vans booth at Noon.

John
RV12 N1212K

Thanks for the updates, John. Keep them coming for the benefit of us non-attendees.
rgmwa
12346

Day 3 at OSH!

Rain moved through last night but today the weather was great. The amount of rain that fell was not enough cause any problems to the fair grounds. Took in one form on Plexiglas. Then over to Vans Booth for the gathering of other RV12 builders. This was a non-event On met 3 guys, a father son team from southern Ohio and a friend of theirs. What happen to everybody? We headed back down to Home Built Parking to our airplane and saw this RV12 that arrived when we were else wear.


You may have seen it on the First flight Photo link. It had a great Paint Job!
There was one other RV12 that we saw on our arrival on Monday afternoon but it had left today before we had a chance to take a picture of it. Here as a picture of a way to organize your hardware while building. You could buy the plastic compartmental boxes at Harbor freight for about $4 each and build the cabinet yourself.


That's it for now I'm not good typer. More tomorrow!

John
RV12 N1212K

Day 4 OSH!

Weather was great again today. Lots of Sun and clear skies. Lots of people stopped by the plane to ask questions. They all want to know if all the hype and sales pitches are true and I said yes they are. 3 RV12s have bugged out to head home. Just 4 of us here now. Here are a few pics I picked up along the way. This first one is of a plane you might want to build if you dont want to spend a lot of money.

It has lots of room in the cockpit.

This is the color you should paint your plane if you are afraid of having a midair.

Here is where you want to be to watch the air show.

Here is a picture of yours truly moving among all the highly motivated aviators.


More tomorrow, will be taking in a 50min video on the Garmin 496 at the Garmin tent. Then maybe get some fuel for the plane. They wont let the fuel trucks on the grass for fear the will get stuck, but the grass seems to be plenty hard enough. So you have to taxi your plane out to the edge of the road in order to get fuel so its a bit of a pain. But thats the price we have to pay to be here in RV heaven.

John
RV12 N1212K

Small world.

Here's my picture of your airplane. The only picture I took of a -12. (Only one I saw.)

It's been quite a show! I have really enjoyed getting to know a lot more VAF comrades that have stopped by and introduced themselves.

Awesome - in the sense that it filled me with awe

Well worth the hop over from Scotland, even allowing for the 8 hour delay in NY. Continental are a dreadful airline...

I saw Vans has a prototype lightweight towbar for the RV12 but Scott says they are unlikely to put it into production. Pity, because it looked ideal.

Vans was also displaying their aircraft cover so we can compare with other generic ones on the market. Anyone with a cover have views on what they purchased? I'm really looking for a lightweight cover for touring.

Cheers...Keith_in_aeroplane_heaven

My Oshkosh Experience

I arrived OSH about 7PM Monday with Bill Milton in a Cessna 195 he was delivering to a customer there. It was a very nice trip from upstate NY in 1950's style comfort! Uneventful trip until the last ten miles – the trip down the railroad tracks from Ripon was chaotic at best and dangerous at worst. Poor controller actions and a breakdown in pilot discipline – but that’s another story.

Had a great two days at the big show. Saw all the Van’s guys that we deal with from time to time, and had nice conversations with Ken Scott and Mitch Lock. Attended the Van’s dinner with Marty Santic (and family) and John Bender, and other RV-12’ers. Actually won a door prize! I have a coupon for a half price Koger sunshade. Gus did a great job emceeing the program and the speaker was most interesting. Got to shake hands with Scott McDaniels and thank him for all his support here on VAF.

Found all the 12’s that I could in the RV parking area and took pictures. The fleet is growing! Larry Geiger’s 12 was on display at the Rotax booth, and attracting a lot of attention. It gets the BigJohn “best workmanship” award by far! What a beautiful job with the fit and finish. I also attended the Rotax 912 seminar given by Phil Lockwood that was full of good info about the care and feeding of the 912.

I managed to get through all four exhibit buildings and particularly enjoyed checking out cold climate accessories like oil cooler thermostats and preheater options. Had a nice conversation with Bob Rieff about his product, which is reasonably priced ($229) and includes heaters on the oil tank and engine bottom. Picked up a couple of Rotax-specific items I needed at the Lockwood booth, and got information about the two-day repairman courses. Stopped by Stein's booth and thanked him for his support. He mentioned that the soft start cables are not out yet due to delays in getting parts from Rotax. Should be coming soon though. He gave me a hat that I proudly wore to give him some free advertising.

Of course the air shows were spectacular, as always, and the camaraderie great. EAA staff and volunteers did a great job recovering the site from the monsoons of the previous week. Looking forward to being back next year with my 12.

What a show!

Look at Larry Geigers engine- His wiring is so sanitary!

Thanks to Marty for calling me about the banquet and taking me back to the dorms! The RV-12 guys are a great bunch!

We went between Tstorms on both the way up on Sat and the way back on Wed, the XM weather is a must to stay VFR!

KLXI lees summit, mo. is a great fuel stop for 92ul. Also they have it in the ultralight area for $3.25/ gallon.

Could someone post a photo of the RV-12 towbar at the vans booth?

John

gblwy said:

I saw Vans has a prototype lightweight towbar for the RV12 but Scott says they are unlikely to put it into production. Pity, because it looked ideal.

Click to expand...

Not sure which Scott told you that, but it wasn't me.
It will be produced, but please wait for announcements about it. The one on display is a prototype so it may still change.
It weighs just over 1 pound and doubles as a rudder gust lock.

OSH Day 5!

The day started out with some clouds in the area and a bit cooler on the Temps. This was good because you can really get sunburned here at OSH on a clear day. We went to watch the 50min video on the Garmin 496 at the Garmin tent. It was a bit boring but there were a few things that we learned, one is that on just about every page you can push the Menu button to access more options associated on that page. We shipped out a box on Fedx to lighten the load on the way home. Met with Mitch Lock to compare building notes. Look for a new thread coming soon about a little gotcha about the step. I think there are only 3 RV12s left here now. One belonges to SportKid who flew up from North Texas with two Aerocoupes in tow. We took in a seminar on Tig welding and would you believe you can weld aluminum foil if you want with one of the Lincoln Welders. Might be something to think about with the fuel tank.


Here is a pic of my flying buddy taking in some of the local delicacies:


This is from the main enterance looking east to Aeroshell Square:


Here is the best place to camp out:



Well thats it for now Got to get my rest for another long day at the show tomorrow. Maybe I can find
Scott out there somewhere!
John
RV12 N1212K

canopy cover

gblwy said:

Well worth the hop over from Scotland, even allowing for the 8 hour delay in NY. Continental are a dreadful airline...

I saw Vans has a prototype lightweight towbar for the RV12 but Scott says they are unlikely to put it into production. Pity, because it looked ideal.

Vans was also displaying their aircraft cover so we can compare with other generic ones on the market. Anyone with a cover have views on what they purchased? I'm really looking for a lightweight cover for touring.

Cheers...Keith_in_aeroplane_heaven

Click to expand...

Go check out the canopy cover thread. Its the cover on jetguy's RV-12. The plane is parked on row 317 just behided Vans on the west side of the north south tram road near the WWI replicas.

Colin

Day 6 at OSH!

Just arrived back at the Dorm room after the night time air show which was the best of the week.


As you can see the grand finally was fireworks. Lots of things to see today to finish up the week. Here is a picture of Sportkids
RV12 which he flew up from Lancaster Texas with two of his buddys who flew Aerocoupes.

Oh lets not forget about the Two/control lock prototype.


But remember that this may or may not be made maybe as per the Man himself Scott McD. We did find Him!

There we also some very odd people about the fair grounds.

The day was long and I have to get some sleep for the flight back tomorrow in the morning, looks like the
wind gods will be with us for the flight home Maybe we can beat our 6 hr and 30 min flight up or at least match it. Till tomorrow!
John
RV12 N1212K

Nice pics and comments guys. Unfortunately although I went by the Van's tent about 10 times I saw none of the 12 crowd. Oshkosh was a great show tho and I believe better with the obvious improvements (bathrooms).
Dick Seiders 19.5 hrs

OSH The ride home!

Im suffering from the after OSH blues. The week long temps here in Texas of 100F a real downer. We headed out on our trip home and took off at 826am Sunday. Our first stop was MUT Iowa. They had Mogas ($3.95) there. We hung out for a few minutes till Dick Jacobs/Sportkid showed up in his RV12 with his two Aerocoupes in tow, they stayed for lunch and we pushed on to our next stop. K88 Ks also had Mogas ($2.55) and a courtesy car, so we took a break for lunch. Then one more leg to DTO Tx, got in around 630pm. Total flight time 6 hrs 45 mins, fuel burn 38gals. The weather was great all along the route. There was little or no winds along the way. Our average Ground Speed was 116kts. OSH was great, got to meet a lot of RV12 guys and the Vans guys. The RV12 performed as predicted. We now have about 25 hours on the engine and will be doing our first oil change next week. See all you guys there next year.
John
RV12 N1212K

OSH Plus

Further tested the long distance utility of the RV-12 the last couple of weeks. After flying into Sloshgosh from Texas on Sunday, I went on Thursday to northern Wyoming before heading back to Texas. Total nautical miles 2566. Total time (including taxi time etc) 25.5. Used 131 gallons of AVgas and car gas. The plane now has 129 hours total time and has been to Florida, Wisconsin, Wyoming and of course Texas. I have loaded it to the max and it still pops right off of the runway at 106 degrees F. In my opinion it has performed better than advertised. Not only is Ken's design outstanding, the avionics combined with the autopilot allows me to do virtually anything necessary during my adventures. I was thrilled to meet Scott McDaniels at Oshkosh because he has been so much help just teaching us how the parts of the aircraft were designed to work together. I did add the IPad to my list of required items because I can load it with SkychartsPro for $19.99 a year and have updated sectionals with a little moving airplane georeferanced on the chart thru the IPad GPS system. The little RV-12 can go anywhere!

iPad and aviation apps

I did add the IPad to my list of required items because I can load it with SkychartsPro for $19.99 a year and have updated sectionals with a little moving airplane georeferanced on the chart thru the IPad GPS system.

Click to expand...

Pete- I just got an iPad this past weekend and this was the first app I downloaded. It looks great!!! As long as you are online, you can move seamlessly across sectionals. For flights, you have to save the sectionals you will need to the iPad memory but even that is painless. Well worth the price. Nice review in SportAviation a few months ago about iPad apps. I think the iPad is going to be a great aviation tool. I am guessing it will not be long before we see one in a panel!!

Jeff

SkyView rumor

At OSH I heard a rumor that Van's is planning to add the Dynon SkyView to the avionics in the RV-12. It will be necessary to redesign the switch control panel to make room for the SkyView. I picked up a full size template of the 10" SkyView from the Dynon booth. It covers most of the left side of the instrument panel. My buddy said that I do not need a SkyView, or an autopilot either. Well, I do not "need" an airplane either. But these are toys that are fun to play with.
Joe

I DO need!

Joe,

When I first talked to Van at Oshkosh about the 12 I asked him if they were going to have an autopilot. He said, "why would anyone want an autopilot in a plane like this?" Too funny. Now that I have one in mine I couldn't live without it. Up at 10,500 where the air is smooth and cool, I punch the AP then plug in my IPhone to my Zulu's and enjoy the ride. You're so right. Airplanes are toys...and I want the best toy available.

Back from Osh

Just got home. I left from Novato, CA (KDVO), picked up a friend in Olympia, WA, and landed at Appleton (along with 350 other airplanes on the Sunday before OSH). Round trip 4,000 miles. The 12 is a great cross country airplane and the engine just purred along. XM weather is a must for flying in that part of the country. We used it almost constantly tracking cells, winds aloft, and metars.

The only down side was a surprise severe thunderstorm that came up while tied down in Brookings, S.D. 72 kts of wind and about 3 inches of rain in 30 minutes. The prototype gust locks would have prevented some damage to the rudder. I had the flapperons and stabilator secured but not the rudder. Still got some damage to the trailing edge of servo tab. I think it is pretty hard to protect against that kind of storm. We were in a hotel when the warning came on TV and went to the airport. Wasn't even raining or blowing outside. The airport is about 3 miles away and when we got there could not even see the airplane. Did see a 55 gal drum tumbling down the street in the wind and rain. We did a field repair putting on some doublers on the trim tab to reinforce where there were some tears with the help of an A&P. I will order new parts and start building a new rudder and trim tabs.

Still a great trip.

Rich

Gust lock for OSH or other trips...

RGaines said:

The only down side was a surprise severe thunderstorm that came up while tied down in Brookings, S.D. 72 kts of wind and about 3 inches of rain in 30 minutes. The prototype gust locks would have prevented some damage to the rudder. I had the flapperons and stabilator secured but not the rudder.
Rich

Click to expand...

A rudder gust lock is easy to make from cheap PVC pipe, and weighs very little.



And no plumbing permit is required.

Tony

Jetguy said:

Day two here at OSH and there are now 5 RV12s that I can find. Pics to follow. Here are some more:

John
RV12 N1212K

Click to expand...

Hey John!! I missed this one, with the "2,000 hr TBO" sign behind it. It's not clear enough to get an N number. Do you know who it belongs to? I sure like the paint scheme!!

Tom

RGaines said:

Just got home. I left from Novato, CA (KDVO), picked up a friend in Olympia, WA, and landed at Appleton (along with 350 other airplanes on the Sunday before OSH). Round trip 4,000 miles. The 12 is a great cross country airplane and the engine just purred along. XM weather is a must for flying in that part of the country. We used it almost constantly tracking cells, winds aloft, and metars.

The only down side was a surprise severe thunderstorm that came up while tied down in Brookings, S.D. 72 kts of wind and about 3 inches of rain in 30 minutes. The prototype gust locks would have prevented some damage to the rudder. I had the flapperons and stabilator secured but not the rudder. Still got some damage to the trailing edge of servo tab. I think it is pretty hard to protect against that kind of storm. We were in a hotel when the warning came on TV and went to the airport. Wasn't even raining or blowing outside. The airport is about 3 miles away and when we got there could not even see the airplane. Did see a 55 gal drum tumbling down the street in the wind and rain. We did a field repair putting on some doublers on the trim tab to reinforce where there were some tears with the help of an A&P. I will order new parts and start building a new rudder and trim tabs.

Still a great trip.

Rich

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your damage Rich but glad you enjoyed the trip...you flew further than I did! I too spent the night in Brookings going west because the entire state was a thunderstorm. Fortunately, it was just lots of rain and no 72 knot winds. I use the gust lock from Avery Tools but I'm sure the PVC one works just as good or better.

Whos RV12

Tom that was N912VZ see it at: http://geicodevelopment.com/rv_12
Thats Larry Geiger's plane.
John
RV12 N1212K

Rudder Lock

Tony,

Very nice idea. Simple and I bet will work. I will get parts tomorrow.

Rich

SkyView

Hope that the SkyView rumor pans out. I want one!! This may be my only airplane and the AP and SkyView will make flying easier and safer for me. Love the rumor.

More Than A Rumor; I Hope!

I think it's more than a rumor! It's more like, "Letting the cat out of the bag" and the next step in hedging the elimination of the 496 production run. Besides, the added features and simplicity of a skyview panel in the RV-12 will certainly add to it's marketing appeal. Dynon sure has taken glass panels to a new level. I'm hoping to see some release info later this year myself.

Tom

todehnal said:

I think it's more than a rumor! It's more like, "Letting the cat out of the bag" and the next step in hedging the elimination of the 496 production run. Besides, the added features and simplicity of a skyview panel in the RV-12 will certainly add to it's marketing appeal. Dynon sure has taken glass panels to a new level. I'm hoping to see some release info later this year myself.

Tom

Click to expand...

if there is money to be made, Van's and Dynon will get it done...I think you're right.

10" Skyview Install

I think they are going to have to revise, or eliminate, the circuit board to get the 10" Skyview in the RV-12 panel. I picked up a sample panel overlay from Dynon and it sure takes a lot of the switch panel geography. That won't hurt my feelings any. I wasn't too excited about that proprietary circuit board anyway.

Tom

While we're at it ..

I tried a new product on the flight to Osh.
Picked up a nifty, inexpensive, and very easy to use add-on that became
invaluable on the flight.
A company called Adventure Pilot has a product called the IFly 700
that improved our flight-of-three route planning north from Texas.
Also caught a possible incursion into an MOA we overlooked enroute.
This little panel works great giving all of the sectionals, flight planning,
GPS moving map, and much more. Larger screen that the 496 and easier
to use while flying.
Great package for about $600.
Local company for us guys here in Texas.
Check it out.
http://www.adventurepilot.com

Dick