Arlen you need to catch up on the RV lingo. You have "Adopted an RV", not purchased one.

When I built mine I spent 3 1/2 years in my garage which included just about every moment that I was awake and at home. I think you made the right choice to Adopt.

BTW I have some good news for you on the fuel burns. I had a hot rodded 0-320 in mine with a Hartzell, but most of my friends ran the 0-360's. I did several crossings of the US on our way to the Bahamas and Turks Caicos flying in large gaggles and our "Gaggle" speed was 162 KTAS and I averaged 7.2 gph block time at this speed! At the fuel stops the RV's with the bigger engines always used less gas than the others. The injected 200hp Lycs running LOP killed us on fuel burn. I'd figure you to come in at 7 gph on trips if you are carbureted.

Some things for you to look into if your new plane doesn't already have them are some little mods to allow the heater to work and keep you from turning blue. RV's pull air in from the tail and through the holes where the flap actuator rods exit the side of the fuse. Seal the rear bulkheads and you will like your airplane much better. Also cold air blasts through the lightening holes in the wings and up through the holes at the base of the control sticks. Add boots at the wing roots to the aileron tubes as well as stick boot which you likely have. If you do, or if your plane already has had these little additions your experience will be much happier. The coldest I've ever been was crossing Texas in my RV. It took hours to recover after landing. Bar none, making one of these warm is the most important part of the build IMO.

Maybe I'll see you on the dark side as I'm considering building again, either a 14 or a Super 8.

That is an amazing looking plane, good luck with it Arlen. Let me know as soon as you are ready for passengers and I will be right over!

The SF-260s are solo from the right seat for this reason... I have seen some RV-6/7s that had a left hand throttle only, the mixture prop, and throttle friction controls were in the center...

We had a guy build one here and he put dual Advanced screens in it. It had a switch on the panel that would make it a solo from the Right seat airplane. It flipped the MFD and PFD around.. Really slick...

Congrats Arlen.

After our last conversation, I had a feeling it was going to be an RV. You done good!
Seeing those fuel burn and speed numbers makes want a second plane just for fun. I am also getting the itch to build something.

I wish I had not seen this thread.

Looks awesome Arlen! I'm envious!

I had very little fixed wing time before I went to Army flight school. Flying an airplane with a stick in the right hand and throttle in the left feels much more natural to me as it feels closer to the majority of my past experience in helicopters.

An RV is in my future, just not sure when.

By the way, the economics of Vans RVs are interesting:

One can get all the components and engine and glass avionics for a new RV-7 or -9 and spend maybe a bit over $100K. Ignore the cost of labor, because you're working for free!

So, you end up with a brand new 2-place plane that is efficient, fast, and has a Lycoming engine, all tricked out for maybe $120-130K.

The RV-10, the 4-place RV with a Lycoming IO-540 looks a lot like a Cirrus, and has similar performance numbers. All in, all tricked out, latest of everything ----> maybe $220K.

Now, when you "adopt" / buy an already flying RV, you need to make sure it had a solid build, but there are plenty of them out there to choose from. There are also quite a few partially built kits that come up for sale: someone loses interest, someone dies, etc. Sometimes a couple years of work can be had for next to nothing. The sales prices of flying RVs are generally less than what the builder has in it.

And, of course, maintenance and repairs can be much less expensive than they are on a certified plane.

I've known people who bought virtually new RV's from the original builder, who enjoyed building the airplane more than flying it so he sold it and bought another kit. The craftsmanship on some of those planes is superb.

That's the RV-10. The RV-14/14A is the newest Van's 2 place. Very similar to an RV-7/7A (which is very similar to the 6/6A) except it has a bigger cabin and calls for the IO-390 engine instead of the usual 360.

One of these days I'm either going to build an 8 or a 14, depending on if I can fit in an 8.

That's the RV-10. .

The economics of RV's is interesting. It does seem true that most airplanes are completed at a cost of nearly 100K. I am not going down that road. I've told many that if I want a 100K dollar airplane, I'll buy a Bonanza.

My goal is to complete my -8 for approximately 35K. If I don't make it, I expect to be close. It is possible to build a good example for a reasonable price. For those considering an RV as a second airplane, this might be a route that would interest them.

Robert

Wow. That's crazy. Please share. A slow build kit alone is $22k without engine and avionics.

I don't want to hijack this thread but I will share a little.

Slow build kit - purchased new.
Engine - Bought a Mooney, parted plane, kept the O-360-A1A for free
Hooker harness - $50.00
Seat cushions - $50.00
Strobes - Free
Transponder - Free
Icom IC-A200 - $200.00 (From Bob Cain)
Round gauges - Take out United instruments $50.00 each
Starter (bought today) - Skytec overhauled $125.00

You get the idea. It can be done. I have paid the asking price for most of my parts. My goal is to prove that flying can still be affordable.

Robert

There are also a couple of serial builders who make a little bit on the labor and sell completed planes.

Arlen, how much cheaper (%wise) do you figure the maint is vs a Bo? (i.e. annuals, misc, etc)

Priceless!!