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Where are the latest RV-12 plans ?

fr0gpil0t

Well Known Member
The back story - working on the wing kit and adding the wings skins. I could have sworn that I had read somewhere I needed to dimple the ribs which are used to form the wing walk because the skin and wing walk stiffener are also dimpled.

I searched the electronic plans high and low and could not find any reference to dimpling the ribs. After wasting a lot of time I finally figured out what was going on.

The paper plans supplied with the wings (Oct 2017) have the left wing page at Rev 1 (Dec 2016) which has a note to dimple the ribs, but the right wing is still at Rev 0 with no dimpling suggested.

The electronic plans supplied end of 2016 are all at revision 0, hence I could not find the note about dimpling, I was beginning to doubt my sanity. There are no updated wing plans on the web, supposedly the source of the latest revisions.

So are the latest plans available anywhere ?

Robert
 
It looks like this is a change that fell through the cracks... it happens occasionally.

Not a big deal though, since it sounds like you are fully aware (now at least) that there is intended to be flush rivets at those locations for future installation of wing walk anti-skid material (skin comes pre-dimpled for that).

With that being the case, dimpled skins are never riveted to substructure or another skin without the associated underlying holes having something done to them to accept the dimple (machine countersunk or dimple countersunk). In this instance, since it is just the thin rib flange you would dimple countersink the holes common with the dimples in the skin.
 
Hey Scott - when I was reading the startup documentation for my kit it made mention of checking online for future updates. Not to nitpick but shouldn't the most recent plans be those? Not plans someone might have saved on their desktop?
 
Hey Scott - when I was reading the startup documentation for my kit it made mention of checking online for future updates. Not to nitpick but shouldn't the most recent plans be those? Not plans someone might have saved on their desktop?


Yes, but Revisions are not always posted to the web site if the only changes to a section were related to a design enhancement or improvement (as in this case changing to flush rivets under the wing walk).

If it were issued as a general revision (implying that all aircraft should be modified) everyone who has already received a wing kit would not have the proper rivets in their kit to be able to comply.

Van's doesn't ship parts to all builders because of a product improvement,but does reserve the right to continue improving the design.

So in this case, the plans with the revision change went out to builders that also received the proper rivets in their kit, there just happened to be an oversight that the plans weren't revised in Section 15 for both the left and R wing. This was likely because all the other RV kits have L & R wings that are mirror images of each other so the plans actually only cover building one wing (you just do the same work in mirror image for the other one). On the RV-12, each wing is slightly different so there are separate build steps for each.
 
Scott - thanks for your response your explanation makes sense.

A follow up question - is there a process Vans would like builders to report plans problems. For example I found 3 or 4 errors around fitting of nutplates. I assume because the wing electrical connector and stall warning mount changed from earlier kits. But not everything in the plans have been updated. I figured it out and confirmed with Support. But it would save someone the effort in the future and save tech support time at Vans.

Going back to this issue - from what I can tell I don't think it was a change in the types of rivets but just that no one had called out the need to dimple the rib. So more of a plan correction. I assumed (wrongly ;-) that the electronic plans were up to date but it seems like they are pretty old. It would be really nice if there was some way of getting all these minor updates which as you say don't appear on the web. I would happily pay for a new USB stick. I find having the plans on an iPad really useful you can enlarge the diagrams.

I know maintaining docs is a pain but it would be nice to get all the updates.

Robert
 
- from what I can tell I don't think it was a change in the types of rivets but just that no one had called out the need to dimple the rib. So more of a plan correction. I assumed (wrongly ;-) that the electronic plans were up to date but it seems like they are pretty old. It would be really nice if there was some way of getting all these minor updates which as you say don't appear on the web. I would happily pay for a new USB stick. I find having the plans on an iPad really useful you can enlarge the diagrams.

I know maintaining docs is a pain but it would be nice to get all the updates.

Robert

Actually it was a change in the rivets.
The rivets at these locations haven't always been flush. That caused the wing walk to wear down more rapidly over the rivet bumps.
A while back (I don't know when exactly), they were changed to flush rivets and apparently only one wings build steps got revised to specify the dimpling of the ribs.

As far as how to notify of needed changes -
You are correct that a reduction in plans errors means a reduction in workload for tech support, so when they get calls or e-mails pointing out an error, that gives them the chance to report it to engineering and hopefully help them selves out.
A lot of them are also gleaned from here on VAF, and then get corrected..... just like this one.
 
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