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Is it just me?

dave4754

Well Known Member
Is it just me or are there others out there that pour through the manual, hour after hour to decipher cryptic Van's blueprints etc.?

I was building the baffles and the front ramps inside the front of the cowling and was trying to figure out what them meant by "bend a line from the intercept of the cowling to the outside baffle into the ramp"

OK so..... i could not figure out how bending the ramp down would help the cause at all of allowing inlet air to find it's way over the cooling cylinder fins.

DING! The light shines and omitted from the instructions was the simple words "bend UP" to contact the under surface of the cowl inlet lip" How simple!

That my friends is the way to spend four hours on a Saturday afternoon deciphering Van's Plans! Any body else do this?

I am booked at 1200 hours building 2400 hours reading.... lol
 
There were times I read, re-read and re-read 5 more times to get that light to come on. Wait until you get to the gear fairings :D
 
You kids these days....you need to build a -3! Some mimeographed instructions, a few sheets of hyroglyphics, and the deed to a bauxite mine - that's what we had!

Somewhere in there, it probably said "build some baffles"......

:):):):)
 
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You kids these days....you need to build a -3! Some mimeographed instructions, a few sheets of hyroglyphics, and the deed to a bauxite mine - that's we had!

Somewhere in there, it probably said "build some baffles"......

:):):):)

That's really funny!

As someone who has to read instructions several times too, and for a guy who learned to fly in the day of "follow the magenta line", I for one am glad they have made it MUCH easier! I'm pretty sure I'm not smart enough to have done this in the "good ole days". :)

I admire you guys that had to REALLY build your own airplane!! Hats off to you!
 
Well after convincing my wife I thought I could build an airplane (after all, I'd been doing Heathkits for years!), the tail kit for my RV-4 showed up. We opened the box together and there were some sheets of aluminum, some ribs, and some bar stock. No plans or instructions! I thought I was screwed. I figured we must be expected to know how to do it. After a few hours (I had to wait until 9PM to afford the long distance call), I called Van himself, and he said it must have been a mistake. A few days later 8 pages of blueprints and some directions showed up. It still took me a few hours (maybe a few days) to realize that the parts I needed on page one were built out of the bar stock depicted on page 8.
So out came the hacksaw, vice, and file. The rest is history.

The pictures in the early RV-4 "manuals" are from my construction. :)

Vic
 
my -4

When I started building my -4 back in the early 90's and poorer than a junkyard dog, I worked for weeks finding the bar stock in the right thickness for the horizontal spar, ate a ton of alum shavings trying to get the radius right, then trying to locate the material for the angle for the hinges, and so on.
Then spending several paychecks on that huge 4x4 frame that the horizontal and rudder is built on........... For those of you who curse the pre-punch holes, trust me, you got it good.

Internet to find information and whine? nope. Just a telephone and a long distance fee and the RVatator if you had enough money to subscribe to it. About the only thing you could look at was the Van video on the vhs player, a Kitplanes article, and the ad that Van's put in the back of the magazine when he boasted total performance, +- 6g, and that amazing speed range. Yep, as bad as you got it now, you really do have it good.
 
I feel your pain. As I built my -7 airframe, I'm pretty sure I spent more hours searching for parts on the pick list than I did building. Just inventorying the parts took at least 5 times as long as it should have, if only Van's had made available a 'soft' copy of the random number-generated pick list, so it could be searched.

And instructions like 'attach part A to part B', with no mention that part A had to be fabricated first, combined with that pick list created with a random number generator....

And the 'help' desk telling me that they couldn't supply a soft copy of the pick list because their computer didn't speak PC. Or Mac. Or....

Charlie
 
Inventory

I feel your pain. As I built my -7 airframe, I'm pretty sure I spent more hours searching for parts on the pick list than I did building. Just inventorying the parts took at least 5 times as long as it should have, if only Van's had made available a 'soft' copy of the random number-generated pick list, so it could be searched.

And instructions like 'attach part A to part B', with no mention that part A had to be fabricated first, combined with that pick list created with a random number generator....

And the 'help' desk telling me that they couldn't supply a soft copy of the pick list because their computer didn't speak PC. Or Mac. Or....

Charlie

If anyone needs a 7 inventory on Excel, let me know. I entered all the data myself and exactly the same as the paper version. Also includes all parts not in my 7a, slider up to and including the Finishing kit. Send me e-mail.
 
I am building my fuselage now but getting used to following the plans really stood out to me. Most all my projects were scratch built or highly modified versions of what I have seen ( never an aircraft but airboats and lots of mechanical stuff) It was figuring it out as you went and thinking of how to solve the next issue 24/7. It became natural so getting the plans and interpreting someones design other than my own was a little eye opening, I remember this well. I work in construction and read plans all the time with no problem but I have been doing that a long time and its not an airplane.
 
Quite the responses....

I do not detect one ounce of Sympathy!

Thanks for all the responses and especially the last one saying yup it is just ME!

Good laugh here for sure.

Dave C.
 
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