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Show us a pic of your FINISHED RV-7/7A!!!

Absolutely beautiful job Rudi. I have been following your build process through this website and your website. It has been fun to watch. Keep us posted on the first flight report and as soon as you do a finish video post that as well!! I can't wait to see it!
 
Nice 7 ...

Great job Rudi. Now you have time to come to Florida and work on my RV-12. Your stop action videos are even more intriguing since I started my build. The build is hard enough with out the thousands of camera setups you need to do. My construction pictures are of anything, anytime and any angle.

More power to you. Be safe & enjoy every minute in your 7 Zulu!
 
Just to complete my RV, the interior only arrived this week.

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Regards
Rudi
 
Rudi you did a very nice job - well done! Everyone in my shop who has dealt with your has been following your progress and it's been nice to see everything you put into it as well as shared with the community. I know being so far away from the suppliers has it's own pains, but I can say it's been a pleasure doing business with you.

Your plane turned out fantastic! Cup holder and map pockets are a nice touch. Panel turned out real nice, and those seats just look good. :)

Cheers,
Stein
 
Another RV-7 airborne in Belgium...

Hi guys,

Our dear friend Paul Paeleman finished his RV-7 last week and it's flying from it's base at Leopoldsburg, Belgium (EBLE)

It's not my airplane or achievement, just want to share the picture in the hope that Paul will contribute an extensive flying report....

Congretulations Paul !!!!!:):):):D:):):)

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OO-149 in the skies over Leopoldsburg
 
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congrats Paul (via Proxy)

"OO" for the registration is interesting. So wonder who registerd OO-7? Clearly it should only go to rv7 builders or spies.
 
The first RV-7 is airborne in Norway!

Hi all.

At 7:59 PM on July 26th, "Wilco" and me got up into the wild blue yonder.
It was the first -7 to be flying in Norway (5 more under construction)

The groundtesting and the RV-transition training had me prepared pretty good, but the heart rate was definetely higher than normal when I advanced power!

The takeoff was done in a heartbeat and soon I was a pattern altitude, starting a turn to stay within gliding distance of the airport.
Everything was looking good, the engine sound was a happy cat and I was one lucky grinning pilot!
A friend of mine flew chase with his RV-6 and joined on my wing and everything looked good from outside too.

After circling the airport for a while, I landed with a biiiig RV-grin on my face!

A couple of minor squaks but fixing of these are well under way.

This post comes alittle late, but I've just gotten hold of the pics from the chase ship. Wanted to have those on here too.

As of yesterday, I've flown close to 12 hrs and 30 minutes and the RV-grin is getting bigger every time I go up! It flies straight as an arrow and hums like a hummingbird!
It's a beautiful aerobatic machine (only positive G maneuvers so far), stalls as expected and sooo easy to land!
What a GREAT plane mr Van has made! No wonder they are so popular!

I'm doing breakin now (balls to the wall) and enjyoing every moment!
CHT's dropped at 7 hrs 30 mins and oilconsumption has dropped too.

All-in-all: it seems that things are well under way and I almost can't believe it...

This is an old dream come true and never would've happened if I had not had the great help of my 6-man building crew! They are all retired mechanics from the Norwegian Airforce. We have had a GREAT time building!
Also; a big hug, kiss and warm THANK YOU to my wife who let me do this and have never complained about the hours I've put in. She has been supportive from Day 1 and gradually become more interested. In fact: she has recently made me order her a practice kit and a tool box! Do I feel lucky.... :)

Also; this plane was bought partly done (fuse, wings and emp completed) from a builder in the US.
His name is William Co.... so the plane is named after him: "Wilco".
The registration: "BAW" is named after his wife and him: Bill, Ann and William"
("LN" is mandatory as these are the Norwegian prefix for airplanes)
In fact: Ann and Bill has become our friends and we've visited eachother several times now and we hope the friendship will last for years to come.

A BIIIG THANK YOU to all the nice people at Vans, specially Barb and Gus. Barb has always giving me superb service, way better than anyting else I've experienced. Gus has always been answering all my questions (including the many dumb ones...) with great knowledge and skill, and quickly too! Those two must have the patience of an angel.

Another BIIIG THANK you to Bill Peterson at Superior and James at Eagle engines! Those two also have been "exposed" to all my questions and have answered professionally, quickly and nicely too! Great customer care guys!

A BIIIG thank you to Doug and you: the members of this forum for all the help I've got!

Lastly a big THANK YOU to Steve in the US who made up the beautiful paintscheme for his -7 and allowed us to copy it.

It's really nice to know it's help out there when you are building a plane in a remote corner of the world, and in a foreign language...



Setup:
Day/night VFR, empty weight 1117 lbs, right seat is pilot seat.
Extreem IO-360 from Eagle Engines, dual P-mags, C/S M/T prop
AFS 3500 EFIS, Garmin SL-40 comm, GTX-327 Tx, Garmin 296 GPS, Proxalert R5
Full interior from Classic Aero Design.

The engine/P-mag/prop-combo makes this the smoothest engine I've ever flown behind!











My RV-6 friend hosed me down with champaign after landing...



... and at the end here, a DUAL RV-grin for you: one on me because of the first flight and one on my wife because she didn't turn into a widow in the process.... hehe....




PS: In October, we'll continue with my other -7 which has been in storage while we completed Wilco. Let the fun begin again...! (the name of that one? "Kermit" of course...)
 
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Well Done Paul And Alf Olav!!!

My first flight is still fresh in my memory so I know what you guys are experiencing...It just gets better...I am on 40hours now and still :D

Kind Regards
Rudi
 
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Congratulations Alf Olav! I use to live in Norway (Oslo), but moved back to NY about 2 years ago. Where in Norway are you? I use to hang out around Fornebu with the EAA chapter there towards the end of Fornebu's life. Was too bad they closed it down.
 
That's gotta be...

the second best looking RV7 I have ever seen! :D



Glad the first flight went well and that it is surpassing all expectations.

Steve
N174AS
 
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Congratulations!

Alf,

What a beautiful bird! Great write-up after a great flight. May you have plenty of blue skies and lots of hours to enjoy.

Jack Dekkinga
RV-7A
54 hours
 
HI Rvators an Update,

Well RV zulu 7 attended the (South African) EAA Sun and Fun at Bloemfontein Tempe.

She 'took the show' and won 2 trophies:
1) First price: Grand Champion Kit Building
2) First price: Grand Champion Overall for the show.

Thank you very much for the recognition, I feel so humble and proud at the same time! :eek::D

Comments and replies over HERE to keep this thread clean

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Kind Regards
Rudi
 
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N438GS with Fresh Paint !!!

First flown December 10th, 2006, my sixyear project finally has paint.

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Gary Slatt
Hummelstown, PA
RV-7A Flying, 101 Hours
Mattituck O-360-A1A, Hartzell CS
9D4 (Myerstown, PA)
 
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Flawless engine start

After 3 years of building, N32WW had an engine start last night. The engine fired up after 1 turn on the prop. I still have to put the nose leg gear faring on the cowl but thought a picture would be nice.

Special thanks to Mike Dalton N34904 for the help the last few days to help me hang the parts on after coming out of the paint shop. Also, a tribute to JB who held that $^$#^%$ bucking bar. Thanks guys.

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Wow!

Gary and Webb,
They do look great! I like the big "N" mumbers with these paint schemes!
You guys are ready for the Bahamas!

Mark
 
Finally Finished and Flying

It has been longer than planned (aren't they all?!), but after finally solving a long standing engine problem we have finished all our test flying, paperwork is off to the LAA (UK Light Aircraft Association), when we get the certificate back in a few weeks we can start enjoying her. We have gone over the top with three AFS screens! They are a great success however, as we are a syndicate of three and we wanted the passenger/second pilot to be able to fly as if they were the pilot, with the same info in front of them and hence a dual throttle set up etc. We fitted a TruTrack autopilot, never flown behind an autopilot before - wow: almost spooky how well it flies. Anyway here are a few piccies:

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congrats lucky

Looks great.

Hehe.
At first I looked at that tag line with curiousity about that terrible journey you experienced, but then I realized it said "heli" instead of ....
 
At last.

1 year 2 months and the rebuild of N131RV is finally complete. Expect to fly within the next two days.
Been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. :)
Click pictures for full size versions. (Warning LARGE)














 
wow, that was some crazy music and some cool footage! congrats on your years of work...
cheers

I would have used some songs in my itunes library, but youtube checks for obvious copyright violations, so what the heck. A few whale and pinball sounds doesn't attract the lawyers.
:)
 
Way to go, Don! Congrats! Your plane looks awesome... nice work. Can't wait to run into you one of these days.
 
Looks fast and fun!

Nice looking plane Tom. Congrats on finishing your project. Have fun flying her!
 
Flying since late October. 120 hours on the hobbs!

My good friend and RV-8A owner Zack Spivey took the first two photos yesterday while flying to the Pecan Plantation Fly-in. (No, he wasn't flying at the time)

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This was a very foggy morning. It makes the airplane look like a model to me.
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sweet paint scheme on that! story behind it?

congrats!:)

Hi Pete,
No story behind the paint scheme, really. I've always liked the T-34 Mentor and some were/are painted similar to this. My friends Zack Spivey and Wayne Petrus were just finishing their 8A and I showed them drawings of how I had planned to paint my 7A. They liked it so much that they decided to paint their 8A very similar. Theirs was flying and painted before mine. The schemes are close enough that they look good when flying in formation, so I'm told;)

Mark
 
fixed pic link

That is one fine looking -7. Congrats!

I love the "some assembly required" thing.
 
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