When I bought my RV-10 in November 2011, I wanted to know as much as I could about the aircraft and its limitations.
The first thing that I noticed was that the VNE that was showing in the existing POH was not what was shown on the Van?s website. I was a little confused as the VNE on the Van?s site showed the VNE to be 200 Knots, TRUE airspeed; I had never seen a VNE expressed that way before. As a military pilot for 6.5 year and an airline pilot for 33 years I had only seen indicated airspeed or Indicated Mach as the VNE of the aircraft I had flown. I contacted Van?s and they confirmed that the VNE of the RV-10 was in fact 200 Knots TRUE AIRSPEED.
As a wandered around the internet looking for other RV-10 POM?s that I might be able to capture data from, I found that about half of them were wrong about the VNE and were showing Indicated airspeed as the measurement of VNE.
I was fortunate and had immediately installed a Garmin GTN-650 GPS in the aircraft after I bought it. That unit has a selection that allows you to see what the TRUE airspeed is. I was shocked to see how many times I came right up to the VNE of 200 True, especially when descending from a higher altitude like 12,500 feet. It was easy to come right up to the limit and I would have to pull back on the throttle or slow the descent to keep the airspeed below the limit.
Late last year, I believe it was the November or December issue of the AOPA magazine Dave Hirschman did an article about the new sweepstakes aircraft that is a RV-10. While reading that article, I saw that AOPA magazine had also made a mistake and listed the VNE of the RV-10 as 200 knots INDICATED AIRSPEED. I wrote to Dave immediately and told him about the mistake and he responded within a day that yes I was correct and the article was incorrect. I told him that since he had a larger audience than I did I would hope that he would publish a correction. Unfortunately he has never done so and I think that could be a fatal mistake.
During this time period I wanted to know more about how Vans reached the decision of the VNE and I was told that it is ?very complicated?. Following that, they sent me a link to a publication that covers the subject very well. The link is below:
http://www.australianflying.com.au/news/vne-and-flutter-explained
Currently on this website (Vanairforce.com) there are three RV-10 POH?s listed and two of them have the VNE speed wrong! Felker, Rene N423CF had the VNE listed as INDICATED airspeed as does Todd Stovall, N728TT
This is a KILLER item, you do not want to have your wings separate from the aircraft due to flutter because you are exceeding the stated VNE, the answer to the question is 200 knots TRUE AIRSPEED!
The first thing that I noticed was that the VNE that was showing in the existing POH was not what was shown on the Van?s website. I was a little confused as the VNE on the Van?s site showed the VNE to be 200 Knots, TRUE airspeed; I had never seen a VNE expressed that way before. As a military pilot for 6.5 year and an airline pilot for 33 years I had only seen indicated airspeed or Indicated Mach as the VNE of the aircraft I had flown. I contacted Van?s and they confirmed that the VNE of the RV-10 was in fact 200 Knots TRUE AIRSPEED.
As a wandered around the internet looking for other RV-10 POM?s that I might be able to capture data from, I found that about half of them were wrong about the VNE and were showing Indicated airspeed as the measurement of VNE.
I was fortunate and had immediately installed a Garmin GTN-650 GPS in the aircraft after I bought it. That unit has a selection that allows you to see what the TRUE airspeed is. I was shocked to see how many times I came right up to the VNE of 200 True, especially when descending from a higher altitude like 12,500 feet. It was easy to come right up to the limit and I would have to pull back on the throttle or slow the descent to keep the airspeed below the limit.
Late last year, I believe it was the November or December issue of the AOPA magazine Dave Hirschman did an article about the new sweepstakes aircraft that is a RV-10. While reading that article, I saw that AOPA magazine had also made a mistake and listed the VNE of the RV-10 as 200 knots INDICATED AIRSPEED. I wrote to Dave immediately and told him about the mistake and he responded within a day that yes I was correct and the article was incorrect. I told him that since he had a larger audience than I did I would hope that he would publish a correction. Unfortunately he has never done so and I think that could be a fatal mistake.
During this time period I wanted to know more about how Vans reached the decision of the VNE and I was told that it is ?very complicated?. Following that, they sent me a link to a publication that covers the subject very well. The link is below:
http://www.australianflying.com.au/news/vne-and-flutter-explained
Currently on this website (Vanairforce.com) there are three RV-10 POH?s listed and two of them have the VNE speed wrong! Felker, Rene N423CF had the VNE listed as INDICATED airspeed as does Todd Stovall, N728TT
This is a KILLER item, you do not want to have your wings separate from the aircraft due to flutter because you are exceeding the stated VNE, the answer to the question is 200 knots TRUE AIRSPEED!