Big crowd for quarterly meeting of Van's Air Force Minnesota Wing
by Bob Collins

(See Flash slideshow from the meeting)

(Saturday December 16, 2006) -- An estimated 80 people and about a dozen RVs showed up at Lake Elmo Airport (21D) in Minnesota this morning for the quarterly meeting of the Minnesota Wing of Van's Air Force. Aside from the fact it's the group that gives me motivation, the Minnesota Wing is significant also as it was the inspiration for RV Builder's Hotline. I was attending a meeting last March featuring Dick Martin, when I realized this was material that could be of interest to the wider RV community.

Doug Weiler conducts an RV trivia quiz for new RV builders. The prize was a 2007 Van's calendar. "It's really great," he joked, "because I'm in it."

Minnesota Wing founder, Northwest Airlines jockey, RV-4 builder and pilot, test pilot and good guy Doug Weiler hosted the gathering in the "Spirit of St. Croix" hangar he shares with RV-7 builder Paul Hove. Paul's RV-7 and Doug's RV-4 were moved outside, so that the place of honor could be given to Tim Olson's fabulous RV-10. Many of you know Tim from his Web site myrv10.com. Tim documents a lot of building procedures on his site, but what he really likes are stories about what people do with their RVs once completed -- travel stories.

"We all graduate from the building part to the flying part -- maybe -- and there's a big change, " Doug Weiler noted. "We get so fixated on building these things that suddenly it's just an airplane and it's like your Cessna 180 and you're going places and you decide 'what can I do besides going to Eau Claire for pancakes?' Every time I look on the Internet, his airplane is traveling some place." He noted that the RV-10 is a "little bit different goal in terms of RV construction. (It) provides a viable alternative to Cirrus, and new Mooneys. Now you throw the family in and you can go places."

And Tim is doing just that. His latest trip in the fall was to the Southwest, and he's got over 180 hours on the plane since its first flight in February 2006. "I'm not a mountain person," he says. "I'm from around here and if the terrain is over 1,000 feet, it can get a little spooky for me," he said, endorsing the Golden Eagle flight planning software. During his trip he says he ran into some nasty weather in the plains with some icing, flew inside along the Rockies and got to the southwest in time for the balloonfest, went to Las Vegas, down to Chandler, Arizona for the fly-in, and to the Land of Enchantment. "It took no time at all from Menominee (Wi.) to Albuquerque. It's a great high-speed traveling plane. We stayed a few days at Land of Enchantment and then came home in 6 hours and 15 minutes," he said.

Tim Olson answers a question about his RV-10

"I used to fly a Sundowner and I thought that was a real comfortable plane. But with the RV-10, the time it takes to get 'there,' everyone is more comfortable and more rested. It makes for a better trip," he said.

Following up on a presentation made by RV-9 builder and pilot Pete Howell of St. Paul on lean-of-peak operations, Olson showed some of his downlinked data that confirmed the value of flying lean-of-peak. While acknowledging the subject can cause some debates on the various Internet sites, Olson said "I drank the Kool Aid and bought the subscription and now I'm happy to be running lean-of-peak."

Showing a graph downloaded from his engine monitor, he said his operation on a recent trip showed him cruising at 9,000 feet and running "around 10 gallons per hour. We had 12 gallons when we landed." He told the group that his data shows him saving three gallons per hour on a cross-country trip. "We did 20 hours of flying round-trip. If you have 20 hours, and a three-gallon per hour difference, that's 60 gallons on the trip at $4 a gallon. Lean of peak can really save a lot," he said.

His RV-10 sports a three-channel Chelton system and he acknowledged his good fortune to have a spouse who didn't flinch when he said he felt better -- safer -- with his system, which he says cost in the neighborhood of $30-$35,000. "But if there's anything about this plane, it's got to be the in-cockpit weather," he said. "On these long cross-country trips, you can't really plan on good weather all the way. The only way to deal with it is to get downlinked weather and get the NEXRAD on the screen. You can do it with a (Garmin) 496. With ours, a Chelton system, they don't support XM weather, so we had to go with WSI." With it, Olson can see cloud tops, rain, locations of hail, he can scroll through watch boxes and read the text from METARS. "I find that to be the most valuable in the plane. I'd give up everything else and fly another plane, as long as I still have that."

He noted that while XM can be had for a $30-$50 monthly subscription, at WSI it's $50. "They're changing, though," he said. "I'll need a new antenna and a new receiver, but they're planning new plans and rates. I talked to the representative at Oshkosh and I could tell they are used to dealing with the big-plane market, and they're not used to dealing with us little guys who don't want to spend a lot of money."

The highway-in-the-sky system has also won him over. "I thought when I played with it in Microsoft Flight Simulator that it was the hokiest thing in the world. And then I actually flew with one. If you line it up (to the boxes), you can couple the autopilot. I can climb to higher altitudes, and load an approach and just let go and it'll fly the approach.

After the presentation, N104CD was rolled out into the Minnesota sunlight (50 degrees, little wind, and no snow this year!) and dozens of people poured over his plane. "How much would it cost to build this?" one person asked. "You can go as high as you want but around $100,000," Olson suggested. For the RV crowd, that's a big pile of cash. Until you think about the cost of a new Cirrus.

Valspar Paint

Valspar paint is a local product. The company is based in Minneapolis-St.Paul and Jeff Eddington of the company stopped by to answer questions about his product. Valspar, as you may know, is the paint that Van's uses on some of the planes in its fleet (see PDF). He said the paint is in stock at its St. Paul location near the downtown Holman Field airport.

Jeff Eddington talks about his Valspar company. He also brought along airbrush artwork of the John Belushi character in "1941" which has me rethinking the entire concept of nose art.

He was asked about whether it was compatible with wash primer: "Then I would go directly to the urethane," he said. "Epoxy is not meant to go over that wash primer; go right to the polyurethane as your next coat. He said paint will provide a plane with great moisture protection, but without the urethane top coat, there would also be no protection from ultraviolet light.

Eddington says because his company does very little advertising and tries to keep the overhead law, the paint products are substantially cheaper than other brands. "We'll save you about half of what it costs for Dupont or PPG," he said. He said his firm's system is available for do-it-yourselfers if the builders are prepared to take the safety precautions necessary to keep from breathing the products. He also highlighted a few firms in the area that, he said, could prep, paint, and buff for the neighborhood of $5,000.

He said white is a favorite color of homebuilders and a typical product cost would be $500 for the water-based preparation chemicals (2 gallons), two gallons of sprayable white primer and two gallons of a top coat. RV builder Paul Irlbeck noted that with the cost of reducers thrown in, PPG supplies would be about $1,600.

WORDS FROM THE DAR

Tim Mahoney of St. Cloud, Minn., spoke about recent inspections he's done of RV projects and he focused on two areas of concern: lights and numbers.

DAR Tim Mahoney said if the lights on a project don't meet specs, he'll make a note on the certificate that it is a day VFR only plane.

"N numbers have to be 3 inches tall and 2 inches wide with a half-inch stroke between each number or letter. I see guys going to the hardware store and buying the numbers you might put on a mailbox but they're only 2 7/8" high," he said. Big deal? Apparently it is. "We split atoms," he said. "Someday you might get a ramp check and the FAA inspector may not know how an airplane is built, but they know what size letters are supposed to be and what data plates are supposed to say. They'll usually have a tape measure with them and they'll dig deeper into the airplane" once they see out-of-regulation letters.

Mahoney also noted that some people are not paying attention to lighting considerations, referring to FAR 91.205. "Lots of people out there are building these kits and they think they can put anything on there," he said. He said he was particularly concerned about LED lights as navigation lights. "There's a candela requirement and there's also a color requirement. There's aviation red, white and green. All light is transmitted at a certain wavelength; red is the highest wavelength. It's very possible that manufacturers don't realize they have to meet an exact color specification."

He also urged people to pay attention to the requirements of visibility. "Most of the time you see a white light or strobe in the rudder," he said. "If you look down the center of the plane, it has to shine 70 degrees up and down." He said some of his inspections have revealed visibility at 90 degrees on the side of the plane, "where you're not supposed to see them at all."

Mahoney discussed the controversies surrounding the 51% rule, especially with builder assistance programs. But he speculated that what's coming may not be as harsh as some might think. "I think they're going to allow panels to be built, and engines to be built, and they may just allow an A&P to come in there and do some of this stuff just to make sure it's done right,." he said.

What does he look for in the construction? "I want to be able to see where the wings are attached, under the engine cowl, the push-pull tube ends. I want to see hinges for all the control surfaces. I look into the fuselage, not so much for the riveting but just to look at it and make sure it's safe to fly." He said he inspected one plane recently that had no fasteners on the rudder bolts.

He also noted that it doesn't matter if there's "2,3,4,10 people building, That's OK by me because I know whoever built it, the group had to build 51% of it." He said a good idea, since only one person can be considered the "repairman" on the project, is to have the youngest person in the group apply for the certificate because "they're around longer to work on the airplane."

A homebuilt RV, he said "is better than a certified airplane in my opinion. (But) we have to keep a good track record here or someone is going to take it away from us."

Pete Howell -- EMag/Pmag

Pete Howell used a series of engine monitor charts to show the effect of lean-of-peak operations.

I'm not writing a lot about Pete Howell's presentation, not because it wasn't good; it certainly was. It's that I am not comfortable writing a lot about engine configurations. I simply do not have the knowledge (yet) to convey the words properly. Pete is "flying off" his hours on his new RV-9 now. It has an e-mag/p-mag installation. He amazed the group with the simplicity of its timing set up and other tales of the installation. He noted there were some issues early in the system, but they have been worked out by the manufacturer.

I hope to be able to put an article together (or even better: would any of you experienced p-mag/e-mag folks like to write one?). Some of the slides in the Saturday presentations are available in the accompanying Flash slideshow.

For more information:
See the Flash slideshow from the meeting.