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Removing electric flaps and install lever?

P

punkin

Well Known Member
For a non-builder, how big of a deal would it be to remove the electric flaps on my 1993 -6 and replace with a lever?

Since I seem determined to make my RV into as capable of a short field aircraft as possible, it would seem that the ability to grab the flaps on rollout and dump them at touchdown would be advantageous, and way too slow with electric...

Would I be best suited to try to find someone who wants the reverse and trade/sell parts back and forth?

Thoughts?
 
Scott,
This should be an easy conversion. My RV6 had manual flaps(electric were not available early on), the -6 was originally designed for manual flaps, electric flaps were an option later. I prefer the manual flaps and installed them on my RV7. Biggest problem was finding a manual flap weldment. You should be able to accomplish the conversion in a days work. It was a little more complicated retrofitting to the -7 because of the lowered cockpit floor, but well worth the effort. Also, you can shorten the handle to your liking.
Good Luck.

Jake
 
Scott,

P.S.

Make sure you also obtain the drawings and internal flap handle spring and button mechanism, as these are also no longer available from Vans. You will also need to change the length of the flap pushrods.
Jake
 
I did it and like it.

I?m glad I switched, it works well for my use. I actually had another VAF member send me the pages out of the plans, and I cobbled together the parts.

I used ABS filament and 100% fill and printed the button and plunger for the flap handle on a 3d printer...then used a grade 8 bolt (cut off) for the ?catch? on the plunger.

I just made the arc?d piece per then plans. It took me a couple of days of figuring, but it turned out pretty well!

Thanks
 
For anyone with a -9 who may wish to install manual flaps, I asked Van's ab out this when i was building and was told that due to the length and design of the slotted flaps, you wouldn't have the strength to deploy them.

Having flown a -6 with manual flaps, I thought it would be a nice option in the -9.
 
N941WR said:
For anyone with a -9 who may wish to install manual flaps, I asked Van's ab out this when i was building and was told that due to the length and design of the slotted flaps, you wouldn't have the strength to deploy them.
Click to expand...
You may not have the strength to deploy them all at once, but you might be able to do it in stages. The first few times I flew my -6 I was deploying all of the flap at once, as I hit Vfe. It's a hard pull to do that, and you'll have trouble maintaining level flight with the other hand while doing it.

I quickly switched to staging my flap extension... First notch at Vfe, decelerate a bit, second notch on base, decelerate a bit, and last notch on final. Doing it this way each pull is quite light. The same would probably be possible on the -9, even if each stage was twice as hard as the -6 it wouldn't be a problem.
 
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