Friday, September 4, 2015

Vans Aircraft RV-12 Airplane Build: First Flight, Fly-off and Final Adjustments

The big day came for the RV-12 and the first flight. As I mentioned in an earlier post Mike Seager did the phase 1 fly-off on my RV-12. It started with another complete inspection by Mike and myself to make sure nothing was missed. Then after final prep Mike climbed aboard, warmed her up and did the first flight!



Over the next two days the prescribed test flights and Van's flight cards were completed, with inspections between each flight.

A couple of things did surface during the test period and are as follows:

Idle was set ~100 rpm too high and was reset to 1450rpm.

One of the landing gear bolts was found slightly low on the torque value when all the bolts were re-torqued.



I placed a small piece of very thin UMHW tape over part of the battery frame as I was told this can short out when putting a trickle charger on the battery.



One of the exhaust springs was wearing on the cowl. So I cut a clearance hole and re-fiberglassed and refinished a depression in the inner cowl duct.














The Take-Off trim indicator was setup.

The left wing was heavy so the right wing was crimped per Van's RV-12 directions.

A rudder trim tab kit was installed and adjustment.

After all of this and the log book sign-offs, Mike and I spent and hour or so flying and preforming take-off and landings.

The next project was to take it up to Pacific Coast Avionics and get a transponder check.

The RV-12 is a great flying airplane! If you are thinking of building one get a test flight from Van's. It's a free test flight that will only cost $70,000:) Enjoy- Vern Smith