Now that I'm back in the business of keeping a blog, I might as well bring you all up to speed on the RV-12, N76012, the namesake of this blog. This is keeping my busy while I wait a phone call from Vans asking me for the final payment for my -15s Wing Kit. Hopefully sometime early next week.
Probably the biggest change/upgrade I have done was back in 2021 I when I added a second D1000 display for the copilot. Mostly, it was an exercise in having something significant to accomplish because, quite frankly, a D1000 for the pilot is a marvel of putting everything you need into one package. I will admit, however, that even at 10", the screen is awfully crowded when all 3 logical pages are enabled. By putting a (nearly) fully redundant display on the right, I now typically fly with one display showing the Flight Instruments (80 %) and engine (20 %) and the other shows Map (80 %) and Engine (20 %).
Last year, I was shocked to find no compression on #2 during my annual condition inspection. Turned out that something chewed up the valve/valve seat as we found lots of impact marks when we removed & replaced parts. The cylinder and piston head were spotless, and even the A&P who repaired the cylinder head was perplexed as to what had caused it. Getting it repaired took me up a level in terms of maintenance. A former student of mine, Fred, was so enamored with his new RV-12 that he took the Rotax Heavy Maintenance course. Armed with his new knowledge, he helped me pull the #2 head & cylinder, the former of which was sent to Lockwood Aviation in FL for their repair of the valve seat and installation of a new valve. While I was at it, I added EGT's to #1 and #2 so I now have all 4 EGTs displayed on the engine page. I figure it'll help me notice another valve failure if I suddenly get much hotter readings on one cylinder. Since I don't have a mixture control, it's purely observation rather than engine management like on the Cirrus.
Getting the #2 cylinder off required dissection of the fiberglass shroud used for cooling and the subsequent re-glassing is incredibly ugly. As it turns out, Vans has issued a letter stating that the shroud is essentially useless and legacy RV-12s fly just fine without one. Hmmm...
This is my 10th year flying the RV-12. It is no longer a brand new plane. There have been lots of other things (not all of which are minor) that I'll skip for now. Rotax calls out replacing all rubber components every 5 years. I don't want to do that again this year. I also realize that I don't know what I don't know. Instead of doing my own condition inspection, I've elected to fly her up to Advanced Powerplant Solutions in Wisconsin. They are one of 3 Rotax shops in the US and they do airframes, too. I'm going to have them do the condition inspection of the airframe and the engine so I can have them double check my inspection abilities. Since replacing all of the rubber components requires a fair amount of dissection of accessories off of the engine (including an oil thermostat installed a few years ago) I've asked them to remove the fiberglass baffle that is worthless and really impedes access to the engine.
I'm hoping to fly her up there in 4 days. The current Prog Charts are favorable. If I launch as planned, Ed will come get me in the Cirrus.
OK, that's enough rambling for today. C'ya!
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