Ron's RV7 Factory: First Air-to-Air Photos

Ron's RV7 Aircraft Factory

Welcome to my personal blog. This site was created as an informal description of my build progress in the construction of a Van's RV7 aircraft. A place where family/friends/builders/curiosity seekers can follow along. It is not intended to be a detailed description of every step in the building process as that would be much too time consuming. There are plenty of sites that do a great job in that arena, that is not my intention with this site. My intention is for this to be a philisophical/motivational/inspirational account of the emotional ups and downs of the life changing journey...and it will change your life. I hope this will give you an idea, through my eyes, of what its like to make this transformation. A note to other builders, I am not an expert so do not put your safety at risk by attempting anything you see on this site until you have done your own research, or send me an email so we can discuss it. Any deviations from the plans are not approved, nor endorsed by Van's Aircraft or myself. Thanks for visiting.

Friday, April 25, 2014

First Air-to-Air Photos

Last Sunday, on Easter 2014, we got the first air-to-air photos of my plane. Good friend, Scott Mills, flying his RV9A (N339A) offered to fly formation with me with fellow RV7 builder Sean Thomas riding shotgun as photographer. There were two goals for this flight. One, the obvious, finally get some pictures. Second was to compare airspeed readings between the two of us.

Well, as much as I was sure my airspeed indicator was about 5 kts slow because of my earlier stall testing...turns out, it was matching Scott almost exactly..within a knot every time we checked. Both indicated airspeed and true airspeed synced up between us. I am now convinced, all airspeed indications are indeed, correct.

I had originally stated that I was stalling at about 45 kts...and I thought solo stall speed was 49 kts. Its actually not! 49kts (more precisely its about 50 kts) is correct for gross weight (1800 lbs). Solo stall speed with flaps is actually a leisurely 51mph, or roughly about 44.3 kts, so my measured 45 kts seems just about right. Again, this is part of learning the capabilities of my new plane and its systems.

Its staggering to think how much I have learned since I started this adventure over five years ago...and its still ongoing. For a guy that loves to learn, it has been an amazing journey. Hopefully as you read my blog, it's helping you learn faster than I, through my trials and tribulations. "Oh yeah, Ron had this same problem."

Here are just a few of the pics shot last weekend. Scott still has most of them on a thumbdrive, as well as some from my first flight. Pretty cool to see the old girl, my creation...in her element. As cool as these are to see however, I cant wait to get her painted and do this again...real soon. She is a little unsightly right now, hasn't put on her ball gown, but she's still beautiful to me...unsightly or not. :)