What sucks about your airplane?

Love my -9A. Best part of building was designing my own panel, choosing avionics and deciding exactly where every switch and button would go.

Crazy good turning radius with free castering nose wheel!

About the only thing that would be really handy is a baggage door...as it is, there's a fairly small slot between tops of seatbacks and canopy through which you feed stuff into the cargo area. May have to look into "s-bend" extended tracks that allow the canopy to slide farther back.
 
asicer said:
Captain should always be the last person to get out of the plane?
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Thinking that it would be better that the captain, who is the most familiar with unlock/opening the door could better get out first and help passengers out?

He could be the last to leave the plane, but first out of the cabin.

Seems to that you don’t allow passengers to be outside the plane when the prop is turning, so there again captain last in (door on the left) would promote that.

I really just don’t get why they put door on the right.
 
ateamer said:
Why wouldn’t you land on the mains first, on any surface?
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From the videos and incident reports I've read, its ain't so much the touchdown as the rollout. So it ain't so much landing mains first as rolling out mains first, er a mains only but yeah point still stands, land flat and you could end up on your back in an A model RV.
Matthew Rogers said:
It is experimental, so why not make a newer stronger nose strut? I can’t imagine there is no fixing that flaw. Even go to some exotic material like titanium will still be cheaper than a certified part.
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It almost ironic that you mention this. There was a time when building an experimental meant 'building' an airplane as in fabricating almost 100% of it. But today most builders of experimentals are really much more assemblers than builders. They factory builds the kit and the owner puts the kit together. And ironically, Vans was a major playing in making that change a reality.

So doing something like redesigning how the nose gear is constructed is far beyond what most kit builders are capable of today. One RV builder did develop a nose gear mod (antispat) and has kind of built an entire small company around it. Many have incorporated his mod but the jury is still out on whether or not it will actually prevent rollovers.
 
I'm with the 2 or 3 guys that said the don't have one, and it does indeed suck.

However, the pick below just.... Wow. I don't want to do that, THAT would suck a big'en.

GRG55 said:
Story I heard is it dates back to the Cub. Hand propping the plane requires being on the right (downgoing blade), hence the entry is on the right. Apparently tradition dies hard...

Here's an illustration of the technique in flight:

View attachment 74043
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I like my 91 Tiger but wished I could have a constant speed prop and 20 extra horsepower. Yah - I know I can buy an MT prop that is an electric constant speed, but at $14K+, seems a bit over priced. 20 extra horsepower - ain’t never gonna happen.
 
painless said:
There is a product out there from a company oddly called Antisplat which is basically a gear leg stiffener. Worst case scenario it causes the leg to bend up high by the cowl instead of down low by the wheelpant, which when it bends it knuckles under and starts the flip process. This is a problem that has been kicked around in the RV circle for years. I believe titanium was brought up but for some reason was ruled out as a cure. Interestingly, the RV 10 and RV 14 both have different nosegear designs, but unfortunately they are not adaptable to earlier A designs.
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The stiffener (which I have installed) prevents the nose wheel from curling under. If there is a "bend" on either side of the stiffener the prop is actually moved UP from the ground instead of down.

Juliet Hotel said:
So it ain't so much landing mains first as rolling out mains first, er a mains only but yeah point still stands, land flat and you could end up on your back in an A model RV.
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The legend of upside down RV-A's is way over hyped.

In fact, I know a guy who collapsed the gear on a RV-6A at Oshkosh and it didn't flip.

I usually refer to him as Me.

Photos or it didn't happen?!?
Aftermath.jpg
 
Ravioli said:
In fact, I know a guy who collapsed the gear on a RV-6A at Oshkosh and it didn't flip.

I usually refer to him as Me.
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We generally talk about the nose gear problem in terms of planes ending up on their back but you're right, they don't always flip. Problem still remains though. The A model nose gear are prone to collapse and far as I know, Vans still officially denies there's any issue. If there was no issue, why redesign the nose gear on the 10 and 14?
 
What sucks? Waiting for a motor! what doesn't suck? Having another airplane!

BE89EDA9-9721-4A24-91D4-052FF05D1167.jpeg
 
The plane I am now consigned to piloting is 20 knots slower and has half as many seats as the plane I really, really want.
Of course, If I ever do get that plane, it too will soon be 20 knots slower and.....
 
kyleb said:
Jeez, man. When did that happen and how did it happen?
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Oshkosh 2015. Came in slow and heavy, botched the landing, tried to save it an porpoised. My GF asked two questions:
Did that just happen?
Are we still camping?

Juliet Hotel said:
We generally talk about the nose gear problem in terms of planes ending up on their back but you're right, they don't always flip. Problem still remains though. The A model nose gear are prone to collapse and far as I know, Vans still officially denies there's any issue. If there was no issue, why redesign the nose gear on the 10 and 14?
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I know there was a nose gear change for the 6 and 7 A's. Not sure what you're implying about redesign for models that have very little in common with them.

painless said:
Sorry to see this. So that was you on 36R?
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Yes, that was me. Candy had some down time but she's back and better. And I learned some stuffs in the process too.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
We generally talk about the nose gear problem in terms of planes ending up on their back but you're right, they don't always flip. Problem still remains though. The A model nose gear are prone to collapse and far as I know, Vans still officially denies there's any issue. If there was no issue, why redesign the nose gear on the 10 and 14?
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Well, the -10 has a much heavier engine/prop than the legacy 2 seaters and the -14 is a slightly downsized 10.

But the regular -A nosegear certainly doesn't tolerate a bunch of abuse.
 
I hate the shotgun style instrument setup.
sho.png
 
Juliet Hotel said:
...If there was no issue, why redesign the nose gear on the 10 and 14?
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Could be because the 10 and 14 are much larger, heavier airplanes than all the previous smaller-engined 2 seaters (6A, 7A, 8A, 9A)? Just a guess. :rolleyes:
 
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Lance- it burns a lot of gas, glides like a brick, handling isn't the sportiest, insurance costs 4x what I paid for the Archer, and I have to sink another pile of money into ADS-B soon.
 
Cessna - almost all of them - including our 172 - have lousy vis and sluggish handling. Had to fly a 182 a lot for a while, and grew to really dislike it in particular.
 
LongRoadBob said:
Not sure that it is one, but I always wondered...why did they decide on the piper airplanes to have the one door be the passenger side? I mean, as someone else wrote, you fly solo most of the time, why isn’t it easier for the pilot to get into the LH seat, why not have the door on the left side?
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On my Mooney, with its right-hand door, I can get into the left seat WAY easier than the right seat.

If I had one of the new Mooney Ultra models with two doors, I would still get in the right side.
 
Love most things about my RV-8...

Wish the gear was a bit more beefy; they tend to be the weak point if the airplane is ever ground looped. The fuselage gear towers get ripped out of the fuselage. Also, the gear towers force the rudder pedals to be close together.
 
One door... and a challenge to maneuver in and out for these old bones... but it is getting easier with practice. ASI says 150 MPH begins yellow... but at lower altitudes she wants to do 160 MPH at 2250/2400. Same airframe a couple of years later with the right ASI... Never heard a pilot complain his plane is too fast, have ya? Trials of owning a Mooney. We should all have my problems, right?
 
Ravioli said:
Of course... but we had to go to Camp Scholler. HBC seems to require intact aircraft.

Not surprisingly, my focus for the show shifted to prop manufacturers!
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Did you have it repaired in OSH or did you truck it home? Are you the builder? I would think it would be suckier to have an accident like that far from home base than anything you previously thought sucked about your airplane.
 
painless said:
Did you have it repaired in OSH or did you truck it home? Are you the builder? I would think it would be suckier to have an accident like that far from home base than anything you previously thought sucked about your airplane.
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Not the builder. I had all the work done there. A few extra trips for progress checks. Shop was great. Longest process was getting the engine back from the tear-down inspection. I thought the Catto prop would be the long lead item, but it beat the engine back by a month.
 
Burns too much gas, isn't fast enough, won't fit in a standard-size T-hangar, carries more stuff than I can fit into a rental car.
 
Ravioli said:
Not the builder. I had all the work done there. A few extra trips for progress checks. Shop was great. Longest process was getting the engine back from the tear-down inspection. I thought the Catto prop would be the long lead item, but it beat the engine back by a month.
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Was anything found during the engine tear down that required replacement?
 
I fly a Hatz biplane. Were it not for the noise, relentless hurricane-force wind sometimes mixed with bullets of rain in the face, occasional bug in the mouth, near impossibility of communication, danger of hypothermia, unshielded exposure to the sun's deadly gamma rays, nonexistent baggage space, low-pressure airflow over the cockpits that can suck out cigarettes and charts, dismal forward visibility and its otherwise shameless impracticality, an open-cockpit biplane might just be the most ideal aircraft ever conceived -- surely, the most wondrous of all man's wondrous machines.
 
painless said:
The flimsy nosegear strut. If you don’t treat it nice, it treats you real bad.
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Most planes don't take well if not "treated nice" ....

ateamer said:
Why wouldn’t you land on the mains first, on any surface?
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That's goal #1o_O

Ravioli said:
Of course... but we had to go to Camp Scholler. HBC seems to require intact aircraft. Not surprisingly, my focus for the show shifted to prop manufacturers!
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Appreciate your messages here Ravioli ...
 
Sundancer said:
sluggish handling
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The Cessna 172 are a complete abomination. It's sad that so many private and recreational pilots think that the handling you get out of those planes is anywhere near acceptable. I find the added weight and "heft" of the 182 make it a more pleasant plane to fly.. but ultimately you are right; they're sluggish, unresponsive, and only sort of go where you point them.. perpetually trimming and managing the damn things. You trim just about any other prolific GA plane out well and they'll fly themselves.
 
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