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Why Build an RV? There are two questions which most people ask when you tell them that you are building an airplane; 1) Why are you building an airplane? 2) Why are you building a Van's RV 7/A? I didn't just wake up one day and say to myself "I need to build and airplane". Well actually, that's exactly what happened. Then I spent a considerable amount of time afterwards trying to justify that dream. Needless to say, I convinced myself that this is what I wanted to do. And believe it or not, it was pretty easy. I used to own a Cessna Hawk XP, 758ND. It was a nice airplane, flew well and never really gave me heartburn. But, it was slow. Crossing the country at 125 knots is painful, and this was with a 195 hp six cylinder IO-360-KB. Add a good headwind and you have the makings of one very long trip. After reviewing my logbook, I realized that I usually only carried one passenger, so a two seat airplane would work for me. I've done a fair amount of aluminum construction and riveting in my past and I feel comfortable that I can master that again. I have less experience with fiberglass construction methods so I'm opting to build an all-aluminum airplane. I did attend a Sportair class though, just to make sure. I highly recommend it. I also felt that I needed to stimulate my flying just a bit. How about some aerobatics? An RV7 will handle 6 positive G's and 3 negative G's, not that I intend to push the envelope. Now which kit plane would satisfy some or all of these needs, plus be in wide production, have several models to chose from, and be cost effective? You guessed it, Van's RV 7A. |
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