Hot Air, Wings, and Flying Things
Van’s RV-12: I Finally Fly the Popular Homebuilt LSA
Although I had flown over 200 different fixed wing aircraft, I had never flown a homebuilt. Mitch Locke, Vans Aircraft East Coast Rep, picked me up on Saturday, September 17 in his RV-12 at MinuteMan Airport on his way up from his home base in Maryland to the twice-delayed Northeast LSA Expo in Lawrence, MA. It is not surprising that my first homebuilt flight would be in a Vans RV of some kind. The company founded by Richard Van Grunsven has revolutionized the Experimental market by producing kits that actually become flying airplanes in numbers never seen in the days when homebuilders tried to scratch-build airplanes.
The RV-12 is a good looking low-wing Light Sport Aircraft, but not as sleek and flashy as the PiperSport/Sport Cruiser , the Evektor Harmony, or the Arion Lightning, or even some of the two seat tandem RVs for that matter.
Mitch Locke’s RV-12 had a nice interior with gray seats with blue inserts, arm rests, and small map pockets on the sidewalls. Cabin width is 43 inches. (A Cessna 150 has a cabin width of 39 inches. A Cessna Skycatcher LSA claims to have a cabin width of just over 44 inches.) The seats did not slide, but had limited adjustment capability while on the ground.
The aircraft has two center sticks in front of and in the middle of each seat. There were toe brakes on both sides. There was good baggage space immediately behind the pilot seat, but the 20 gallon fuel tank behind the right seat limited space there to a shelf. The baggage area behind the seats is rated at 50 pounds.
It had a Dynon D180 PFD; a Garmin 396 in the panel with XM weather with the “hockey puck” antenna mounted out of sight under the cowling; a Garmin SL40 comm radio; and a Garmin GTX 327 transponder. The fuel on-off switch is a red ball in front of the middle of the seats. Mitch said, “Up is off and down is on”. I preferred to think of it as forward is off and back is on.
It has full span flaperons. It has two position flaps, 15 and 30 degrees, activated by a handle between the seats. The composite propeller is ground adjustable. One very unusual feature: the pitot tube is a small open tube in the center of the propeller spinner! Lights are an option for Private or Commercial pilots. On Mitch Locke’s airplane, landing, strobe, and nav lights are LEDs.
Ignition I and II preflight checks are done by switching rocker switches on the panel on and off. The takeoff was typical for a Rotax-powered LSA: quick off the runway and quick to climb out. The plane in the air is comfortable and visibility is good.
In the air, the plane had nice light stick forces, even when doing steep turns. The trim rocker switch on the panel switch worked well and using it was easy and intuitive. Stalls: Approach stalls result in a slight nose drop with the wings remaining level. The departure stall resulted in a slightly sharper drop with a slight turn to the left. Both stalls were easily controllable. A stall warning horn sounds prior to the stall break.
On approach to landing, like other LSAs I have flown, it was slick and didn’t want to slow down (although it was easy to adjust once one realized it). Landing characteristics were completely conventional, with the view out the front appearing that we were landing straight down the runway (unlike some other LSAs that seem to be cocked 10-15 degrees to the right on landing).
There was one annoying trait: (which I also encountered on the first Gobosh aircraft I flew, but which I don’t remember encountering on the SportCruiser), is that if the throttle was not locked down, it would go to higher power if you let it go. Mitch Locke said this was the way Rotax designed it, so that if the throttle linkage broke the pilot would have power available. He said Rotax mandates that it be installed that way. It was annoying in flight, although oddly enough I found myself liking the ability to let go to get more power when I wanted more power on approach to landing.
On the ground at the EAA 106 Northeast Light Sport Expo, I continued my discussion of the RV-12 with Mitch Locke. An S-LSA certification must be required to license E-LSA kits. The red RV-12 back at the Vans home facility in Oregon is considered a factory built aircraft. There is apparently no intent to build and sell S-LSA RV-12s.
One of the big advantages of the RV-12 is that you can get the equivalent of low wing production LSAs for about half the cost if you are handy with building things and are willing to build one yourself. Build time is 800 to 900 hours. The kit has skins pre-bent and pre-sized. Curiously enough, the E-LSA rules do not require that a homebuilder perform at least 51% of the work, a requirement for other Experimental aircraft. The Vans website notes: “In the E-LSA category, there is no "51%" rule, and no restriction on who may assist in building the airplane. This allows any amount of assistance or even a fully professionally-built airplane.” You could probably pay someone experienced in building aircraft to do most of the work of building one for you, although if you do the price you will probably have to pay for their labor is likely to raise the cost to close to the cost of production S-LSAs.
The standard kit price is $63,165, and includes an avionics package including a single 10" Dynon Skyview EFIS complete with engine monitor, internal GPS, moving map software, synthetic vision and modes S transponder; a Garmin SL-40 comm radio; a Flightcom stereo intercom; and a 406 MHz ELT. The only thing not included in the standard kit needed for a complete airplane is the paint. Optional kits, over and above the standard kit price, include: Nav/strobe and landing lights; complete or partial interior; a second Dynon D-100; a two axis autopilot; and wheel pants with main gearleg fairing.
According to Vans sources, there have been 588 RV-12 “kit starts”, and 135 RV-12s are flying. If the RV-12 was a production S-LSA, it would be in sixth place out of more than 100 S-LSAs on the market in number sold and flying (including being ahead of the slowly produced Cessna Skycatcher).
Some RV-12 key specifications: Rated cruise is 116 mph at 5000 rpm, 131 mph at 5500 rpm. Sea level rate of climb is a respectable 900 fpm. Stall speed is 52 mph. Range is approximately 500 miles. Gross weight is the LSA maximum of 1320 lbs. Empty weight is 740 lbs. With 20 gallons of fuel, this gives a very respectable LSA full fuel weight of 460 lbs. The Rotax engine has a 2000 hour TBO.
By Jim Ellis