Vans Aircraft Rv6 - Appearances are deceptive, because on looks alone, the RV-6A doesn't suggest the superb handling to be found. And while you might have excused RV owners waxing poetic about their airplanes' handling qualities, their boasting goes beyond mere parental pride.
In every flight regime we sampled, the RV-6As handling is exemplary. Where many airplanes have traded control feel for stability, the RV-6A seems like the ideal compromise between yank-and-bank fantasy flights and the dull reality of the long cross-country.
Vans Aircraft Rv6
Lightest are the ailerons, with abundant authority; During stall demonstrations, it's possible to waggle the wings on aileron input alone, well into the stall buffet. Pitch response is heavier, followed by a heavier-still rudder. Short-period longitudinal stability is excellent, and the airplane sticks to trim airspeed tenaciously.
Vans Aircraft Enters Its Third Decade On A Roll
It is also more yaw-stable than such a short airplane ought to be. Finally, however, the company, now long tired of hearing from builders about a side-by-side airplane, decided to give it a go after all.
In 1985, development began in earnest on the RV-6. Using a shallower canopy and tighter cowl than Chard's design, the RV-6 proved to be only slightly slower than the -4, and managed to retain much of the smaller airplane's handling qualities.
Grudgingly, VanGrunsven admitted that the side-by-side concept could work. Conventional materials and design help keep costs in line, too. The basic kit, which includes plans, all the raw aluminum cut and in many cases formed to final shape, hardware, and fiberglass pieces, runs $9,975 for the -6A, $9,370 for the -6, $8,660 for the -4, and $6,310 for
the -3. Add to this the usual engine, prop, interior, paint, instruments, and radios, and you could have a basic, no-frills -6A in the air for around $20,000, assuming you found a used, overhauled engine and didn't go.
Crazy with the options. And what you get for your investment of both time and money, might not be the flashiest airplane on the ramp, but it will be a solid, thoroughly tested and understood conveyance.
These are qualities that have helped the RV series sell itself for almost 20 years now, a situation that shows no signs of letting up. As with all RVs, the 6A embodies the prime VanGrunsven design tenets: Keep it simple, keep it light, make it strong.
Looking a bit like a Grumman two-seater, the RV-6A sports an impossibly stubby, constant-chord wing and a vaguely P-51-like tail. The wing, VanGrunsven says, is a NACA 230-series airfoil that has excellent characteristics for this airplane.
It is easy to build and relatively insensitive to its surface condition, especially next to some of the laminar-flow airfoils. So whether it's bugs on the leading edge or imperfect build-up, it will remain forgiving. Other benefits include lighter weight than a higher aspect-ratio wing, and reduced adverse yaw, because the Friese-type ailerons are so close to the aircraft centerline.
Plain flaps reside inboard of the ailerons. But still the builders began calling for a side-by-side airplane, one where the spouse's view would be more than the back of the pilot's head. In this case, though, one builder, Art Chard, took it upon himself to answer the question.
He began work in the late 1970s on a side-by-side version of the RV-4, with some help from the factory. His version flew two years before the RV-4, and was dubbed the RV-6 by Van's Aircraft.
Unfortunately, the airplane turned out to be about 17 knots slower than the RV-4, validating VanGrunsven's contention that tandem was the way to go. It's no secret that homebuilt airplanes have matured and prospered in ways few would have predicted 10 or 15 years ago.
New designs from across the country pour into shops and garages at an almost dizzying rate. And with this newfound success and diversity comes ever more sophisticated marketing, with the leading kit manufacturers able to out-slick and out-promote the Wichita types.
What's more, with the revised certification compliance programs recently announced by the FAA, we may see some of the new kids on the block turn into the establishment in the decades to come. Kind of like the Berkeley hippie shedding the bookstore job and Birkenstocks for the stock exchange and Florsheims.
Performance usually comes at the top of the list of questions, and the RV series as a whole does well in this regard, no surprise, really, considering the airplanes have low power loading. At 1,650 pounds and 180 hp, the new airplane has the maximum weight of a Cessna 152 but the power of an Archer, so there's little wonder why it pulls itself off the runway in even less distance than the 300 feet quoted for the 160-hp
RV-6A. Maximum weight of the 160-hp airplane is 1,600 pounds, and it's capable of the aforementioned short takeoff roll coupled with an initial climb of 1,400 fpm. (And this is the most sluggish of the RVs; a 150-hp RV-3 can manage 2,300 fpm initially.)
Into shiny wingtips Richard VanGrunsven's feet do not easily slip, however. A man so low-key as to make Paul Tsongas seem like Richard Simmons, Van, as everyone calls him, has shepherded one of the longest-lived kit airplanes from humble roots to something of an aeronautical empire.
Highly regarded by his competitors and adored by the builders, VanGrunsven has penned a series of airplanes, the RV-3, RV-4, RV-6, and RV-6A, that have become popular because they are, like the man himself, Understated, straightforward, and absolutely no-nonsense.
Yet more queries from the builders (and prospective builders) for a tricycle version of the airplane resulted in the RV-6A, which first flew in 1988. Currently, kit sales are split three ways, among the RV-4, RV-6,
and RV-6A. VanGrunsven admits that very few RV-3s are ordered today, much to his dismay — you can see when he says this that the -3 is his emotional favorite. In fact, when we visited Van's North Plains, Oregon, facility, there was a -3 in construction intended to be as light as possible, with the exclusion of starter, electrical system, and anything on the airplane that doesn't make it fly.
. With a gleam in his eyes and characteristic understatement, he says, "This one ought to be fun." That the RV-4 gained an extra pillion by placing it in tandem reflects VanGrunsven's thinking: Make the airplane remain a pilot's airplane, make it fly as much like the single-seater as possible.
He felt the tandem arrangement was best, preserving the basic lines and hindering weight and aerodynamics the least. The RV-4 was a success right out of the box. At 43 inches, the cabin is quite wide, and you'll find plenty of legroom and shoulder room.
With the side-by-side seating, the RV-6 and RV-6As panels are large enough for about all the gadgets your budget can stand. But be careful of the weight: With a typical empty weight of the -6A as 995 pounds, payload is 377 pounds, or two FAA-standard types and a bit of baggage.
A panel full of twinkling lights could cut deep into that. If you get from this description that the RV-6A is in every way except performance conventional, you're getting the point. Conventional also describes the construction materials and methods.
Nothing on the airplane would raise the eyebrow of someone who had been hammering together Cessnas or Beeches for decades. You have your basic stressed aluminum skins, standard rivets, and the occasional use of fiberglass on fairings and the cowling.
Some builders admit to being apprehensive about riveting, but most agree that with some practice the routine becomes second-nature, and the anxiety level therefore drops dramatically. Since 1973, when the single-seat RV-3 debuted, Van's Aircraft has sold 3,000 sets of plans and has cranked out 4,000 airframe kits, with about 700 having been completed.
The majority have been the two-seat RV-4. The completion rate has been accelerating for some time, with an average of one first flight every 3.5 days, or about 100 new RVs a year. As with many designs, the VanGrunsven airplanes sprang from his dissatisfaction with another model.
In 1962, VanGrunsven was flying a Stits Playboy, a single-seat, low-wing taildragger with a 65-horsepower Continental. Unhappy with the airplane's speed, he swapped out the engine for a 125-hp Lycoming, but the Stits was still no P-51.
So in 1965 VanGrunsven designed and built a set of aluminum cantilever wings to replace Playboy's strutted, wood-and-fabric wings. This transformed the airplane and Van flew the airplane through 1968. From the lessons learned with the Playboy, VanGrunsven penned the RV-3, an all-aluminum airplane quite similar to the Stits;
it flew in late 1971. This single-seat taildragger was intended to be a sport airplane, capable of performing aerobatics for fun (rather than being a pure acro competitor) and conveying the pilot with reasonable dispatch to wherever fun might be found.
By 1972, Van's was selling plans for the airplane. On our visit, we spent time with the -6A, largely because it has the most mainstream appeal, and because it forms the basis of a new model for Van's, an as-yet unnamed 180-hp, constant-speed-prop version of
the RV-6A. Still in flight test, the gleaming red 180-hp airplane employs a number of refinements, including a taller, sliding canopy and composite main-gear legs. Its maximum gross weight has also been boosted by 50 pounds, to 1,650 pounds.
Van's intends to certify it as a trainer/sport model under the revised certification compliance rules. It is also the only factory airplane to be fitted with IFR-capable radios and instruments. As for build time, Van's estimates range from 1,200 hours for the RV-3 up to 1,800 hours for an RV-6A, which assumes a basic airplane with no fancy paint, interior, or avionics.
Forty or 50 man-hours can be saved by purchasing the main wing spar premade from Phlogiston Products of Forrest Grove, Oregon; cost is $695. Many builders have taken advantage of this service to cut the build time and to ensure that such a critical component is done absolutely right.
(Although Van's has done the drilling on the standard spar to reduce the chances of builder error.) Once leveled in cruise, using 75-percent power the RV-6A can run up to 164 knots at 8,000 feet, a figure we verified on our visit.
The taildragger RV-6 is slightly faster at 166 knots, in turn led by the 168-knot RV-3 and 174-knot RV-3. In other words, Bonanza speeds on Skyhawk power. Service ceilings range from 25,000 feet in the RV-3 to 16,300 feet in a maximum-gross RV-6A, which can claw its way up to 20,500 feet with a single soul aboard.
Stall speeds run from 45 knots in the RV-3, to 48 knots in the RV-6A. Fuel capacity varies by model, ranging from a standard 24 gallons in the RV-3 to 38 gallons in the -6A.
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