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The Airplane

We’ve decided to build a Van’s Aircraft RV-7A.  Most of Van’s models are available in either a tailwheel or nosewheel version.  Although I love flying taildraggers, I’m thinking that long term, a nosedragger might be a better choice. Dan has started flying and should have his private this summer.  I wanted something that I wouldn’t be afraid to let him use anytime he wanted.  I was a little concerned that the taildragger configuration might be a handful on windy days if he hasn’t flown the RV in a while.  The taildragger sure looks cooler though…

One of the big goals of this whole project is to spend some time with Dan before he goes off to college (he’s hoping to get a Naval or Air Force Academy appointment).  That means we have about 1 year to finish the plane.  We’ll see how that goes.  I’ve had some people tell me that it will take 5+ years.  We decided to go the quickbuild route which means that some parts of the fuselage and wing come pre assembled.  The photo below may be a little misleading – there are a lot of parts, bolts, and rivets in those little bags.  There is still a LOT of work to do and we estimate it will require anywhere from 1,200 to 1,600 hours to produce a flyable machine.

That’s a bunch ‘o parts!

The RV-7A has speed and range roughly equivalent to the Bellanca Super Viking we currently own.  I have found that most of the time I’m flying by myself or with one other person, so the RV will be more economical to operate.

RV-7 is a well behaved cross country plane capable of gentleman’s aerobatics. This means loops and rolls, but not necessarily the beat-up-the-pilot aerobatics you might see at an air show. I have about 6 hours of time in a Pitts biplane and would love to rekindle that flame down the road.  The power to weight ratio of the RV-7 with a 200HP engine is roughly equivalent to that of a Corvette with a 450HP engine. Bottom line – this is a fairly fast little plane with good range and efficiency.

At this point I’m thinking we will utilize a 180 hp IO-360 engine, but that is still under investigation.  The 180 hp uses lower compression cylinders and is substantially less expensive than the 200 hp IO-360.  Unless you are racing, you just don’t get enough of a boost in performance for the additional $10-12k.

The following are the specs published by Van’s Aircraft for the RV-7.

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