Van's Air Force
Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.
Any other RV-10's out there with 1,000+ hours on the Hobbs?
- Thread starter rdoerr01
- Start date
Sure, but I hope you didn't mean how much the gas cost for that 1,000 hours because I would hate my wife to see this post. 
Owning and operating my RV-10 for these 1,000 hours has been awesome, it is a joy to fly and I fly it a lot. In the 7.25 years that I have been flying it these are some of the details I can recall.
1. Alternator Field wire broke early on. This was a solder joint close to the alternator where the wire wasn't supported. A simple fix and secure it to the larger 8 AWG wire and use RTV to ensure vibration doesn't cause it to happen again. This was the first Van's Alternator, this has since been replace with the 70 Amp Plane Power one. Next time the 60 Amp Plane Power would have been more then enough as the 70 Amp requires a little more clearance between the cowl.
2. I'm on my 5th set of Main Tires. The original set from Van's Kit and the second set which were the same as Van's supplies are very poor. They wear on the outer edge of the tire only and require you to flip them on the rim to wear out the other size. The third set I used the Desser retreads, these worked great and the wear was even across the width of the tire so I didn't have to flip them on the rim at half life. Four set was brand new Good Year Flight Custom II and they wear even across the width but didn't last any longer then the retreads. On my 5th set I went back to the Desser Retreads. As you can tell I end up doing a lot of Take Offs and Landing, short flight 10 - 15 mins down to K81 for some BBQ. I'm only on my second nose tire and it is the Good Year Flight Custom II.
3. Brake Line leak that was dripping off the left caliber. Turns out the leak was coming from the aluminum tube at the connection on the belly as it runs down the gear leg. I replaced the stock aluminum lines with teflon braided 1/4" lines with a heavy heat shrink line cover over the braid. These are awesome once you figure out the correct line length.
4. Side hinge on pilot side had most of the eyelet wear to the point where 5 eyelets just fell off when doing one oil change. It was easy to replace but now have 20 rivets or so with no paint on them. This happen at around 800 hours.
5. Short Bottom Hinge on each side of the exhaust had a few eyelets break closest to the scoop. Next time I would use .063 material with nutplates instead of the hinge.
6. Fuel Line leak in the line that goes from the mechanical fuel pump on the engine with the restrictor up to the pressure sender block for the fuel pressure. This only happened after 7 years and it showed up on the G3x as a higher than normal fuel flow and a lower than normal fuel pressure. This issue was intermittent between flights. As far as I can tell, the likely reason for the premature failure was not quite enough slack in this line to allow for engine shake. I replaced this hose with one that was 5/8" longer.
Other changes and improvement that have been made are:
1. Just finished adding Air/Oil separator from AntiSplat. ONly 4 hours on that now but so far it looks good and the belly is still clean.
2. Panel change to 3 screen Garmin G3x and TruTrak Gx Pilot.
3. Swapped out TruTrak Ap for Garmin Servo's about one year after Garmin G3x install.
4. Added Slick Start module to assist in starting. This was added at about 500 hours.
5. Added electric rudder trim at about 250 hours. Just before being painted.
Thanks
Ray Doerr
RV-10 (40250)
N519RV
Owning and operating my RV-10 for these 1,000 hours has been awesome, it is a joy to fly and I fly it a lot. In the 7.25 years that I have been flying it these are some of the details I can recall.
1. Alternator Field wire broke early on. This was a solder joint close to the alternator where the wire wasn't supported. A simple fix and secure it to the larger 8 AWG wire and use RTV to ensure vibration doesn't cause it to happen again. This was the first Van's Alternator, this has since been replace with the 70 Amp Plane Power one. Next time the 60 Amp Plane Power would have been more then enough as the 70 Amp requires a little more clearance between the cowl.
2. I'm on my 5th set of Main Tires. The original set from Van's Kit and the second set which were the same as Van's supplies are very poor. They wear on the outer edge of the tire only and require you to flip them on the rim to wear out the other size. The third set I used the Desser retreads, these worked great and the wear was even across the width of the tire so I didn't have to flip them on the rim at half life. Four set was brand new Good Year Flight Custom II and they wear even across the width but didn't last any longer then the retreads. On my 5th set I went back to the Desser Retreads. As you can tell I end up doing a lot of Take Offs and Landing, short flight 10 - 15 mins down to K81 for some BBQ. I'm only on my second nose tire and it is the Good Year Flight Custom II.
3. Brake Line leak that was dripping off the left caliber. Turns out the leak was coming from the aluminum tube at the connection on the belly as it runs down the gear leg. I replaced the stock aluminum lines with teflon braided 1/4" lines with a heavy heat shrink line cover over the braid. These are awesome once you figure out the correct line length.
4. Side hinge on pilot side had most of the eyelet wear to the point where 5 eyelets just fell off when doing one oil change. It was easy to replace but now have 20 rivets or so with no paint on them. This happen at around 800 hours.
5. Short Bottom Hinge on each side of the exhaust had a few eyelets break closest to the scoop. Next time I would use .063 material with nutplates instead of the hinge.
6. Fuel Line leak in the line that goes from the mechanical fuel pump on the engine with the restrictor up to the pressure sender block for the fuel pressure. This only happened after 7 years and it showed up on the G3x as a higher than normal fuel flow and a lower than normal fuel pressure. This issue was intermittent between flights. As far as I can tell, the likely reason for the premature failure was not quite enough slack in this line to allow for engine shake. I replaced this hose with one that was 5/8" longer.
Other changes and improvement that have been made are:
1. Just finished adding Air/Oil separator from AntiSplat. ONly 4 hours on that now but so far it looks good and the belly is still clean.
2. Panel change to 3 screen Garmin G3x and TruTrak Gx Pilot.
3. Swapped out TruTrak Ap for Garmin Servo's about one year after Garmin G3x install.
4. Added Slick Start module to assist in starting. This was added at about 500 hours.
5. Added electric rudder trim at about 250 hours. Just before being painted.
Thanks
Ray Doerr
RV-10 (40250)
N519RV
Last edited:
Bill.Peyton
Well Known Member
Jesse,
How about a report at 1300?
Ray,
Did you connect the Air/Oil Sep to the exhaust? I have about 50 hours on mine and it's working great.
How about a report at 1300?
Ray,
Did you connect the Air/Oil Sep to the exhaust? I have about 50 hours on mine and it's working great.
