Experimenter

May 2013

Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.

Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/126719

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Occasionally, it is best not to think too much. Grinding It Out Much like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, I never knew where the road would lead when I became "casually" aware of Van's Aircraft in 1995. It was all very interesting; but we (my wife, Sara, and I) needed a comfortable fourplace aircraft, and the existing Van's offerings seemed too snappy for cross-country travel. But then rumors began to be heard, projected speciļ¬cations were published, and pathetically poor pictures surfaced of a four-seater under development. When Dick Van Grunsven wrote his pilot report on the new RV-10, we believed, mostly on Van's values, that this was the airplane for us. In July 2003 we received an order form and mailed it the next day, becoming Kit No. 29. The big box was delivered in October, and my life changed forever. And most amazingly, we have never regretted what was basically an emotional decision. The airframe building moved along mindlessly, prepping, drilling, and riveting the aluminum pieces together. After watching the prices of four-cylinder Lycoming engines react to the volume of Van's earlier products, I jumped on a pristine, 20-hour SFOH Lycoming IO-540 and lovingly tucked it away for a later day. Around June 2005, I realized that the airframe and engine completion was easy to visualize, but how would I transform the blank aluminum plate into a functional panel? Remember, in 2005 the avionics choices were not what they are today. I looked at Garmin, Chelton, Dynon, OP Technologies, and Blue Mountain, rejecting each of these vendors for a variety of reasons. I had been designing and implementing computer solutions since 1969 EAA Experimenter 19

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