Completely Unpacked Wings

Well, inventorying the small parts only took about an hour or so.   Van's has changed their method of packing small parts and are now using a collection of "tackle boxes" as they are called on VAF.  They are translucent plastic boxes with customizable inserts that are postioned to make ~25-30 little part bins.  Van's then printed a 'parts map' that physically overlays the bins for easy identification.  Think 'box of chocolates' from Valentine's Day with the candies labeled on the inside of the lid.    VAF had a few grumpy comments about parts that spilled over, but mine were just fine.

(I did forget to double check the length of the Cherry Max rivets that I received.  Some very early kits apparently had the wrong length of those parts.)

Tackle Boxes of Small Parts

Despite my reticence about throwing away good material, I just cut up the crate into <5' chunks and folded and tied all of the heavy duty cardboard into individual bundles and drug it all to the curb.   I hope it all got picked up today!  (My wife has not texted me anything to the contrary, so I'm hopeful.) The garage is now officially a workshop and ready for business!

Workshop (neé garage),

 generously donated by my loving wife.

Mostly Unpacked

 I finished unpacking the big crate yesterday.  

Big Empty Crate

I drastically overestimated the shelf space for small items and underestimated the space needed for the skins & spars.  Duh.   I'm not completely happy with where I needed to put everything from the point of view of convenience in working on them, but I am happy that everything is either properly supported or tucked away such that they won't get bent.    There were only 3 pieces that weren't included and I'll have plenty of time to send Vans the discrepancy list before the 30 day window closes.

I opened one of the small crates and just looked at the wing tank, but didn't remove & unpack it yet.  I think I'll take the tanks out of their boxes and discard most of the packing material to get some more room in the shop.   

Small Crate w Wing Tank

I have to figure out how to get rid of the crate & pallet, though.  Even if I could just drag them to the curb for trash pickup, it offends my soul to discard perfectly good plywood.  

Tomorrow I will tackle the 3 tackle boxes of small parts and do their inventory.  I expect that I'll be able to send the discrepancy email to Vans before we leave for vacation next week.   When we get back, I will start my first bit of actual work and assemble another practice kit.  That'll help get my muscle memory back for working with sheet metal and give me something to use to learn to drive rivets.  One of the big selling points of the RV12 was that there were no driven rivets.  Not quite the case in the RV-15, so I borrowed a gun and will get some tutoring and build up the practice kit before tackling the main project.

Wing Kit Arrived!

Yesterday was a big day with the long awaited (9 months since original deposit) of my RV-15 Wing Kit (except for the spars, but they should arrive in about a month or so.)  Van's shipped via a company named ABF.  ABF called me the other day and set up a delivery for Friday May 8th.  Then the status page for the order said May 11th.  I called and they confirmed the 11th.  I pointed out they hadn't notified me about the change, and that the 11th wouldn't work for me.  They said 'OK' and said they'd drop it off on the 8th.  no apologies or anything.  Weird. 

OK, so the delivery window was from 8am to 8pm.  Because I never procrastinate, the garage was completely cleaned and organized and ready for the deliver.  Not.  So at 8am I check the status page (loading) and got to work in the garage.   By noon, I had converted a garage w/ nearly 3 years of cruft & debris into an acceptable and clean workshop.  

Clean & Ready Workshop

Around 1pm, the status page finally said 'out for delivery' and I started to trust them that they would deliver and not make me wait until next week.   Around 4:30, the truck showed up.  The driver cursed that they didn't give him the right equipment to unload it properly so I enlisted my neighbor, Kevin, and his friend and the 4 of us eventually manhandled the crates into the workshop.

Wing kit boxes in the workshop

main box, before opening

Main box

I tackled the main box first. I had to drive out to the hangar to get a Dremel tool to cut the metal straps and grabbed my drill press, band saw, grinder and a bunch of loose/small tools.  I had put off getting tools until the garage had been cleaned and converted in order to not add to the clutter and further drive myself crazy.  I spent about 2 hrs excavating a phenomenal amount of crushed brown wrapping paper out of the box to get to the result you see above.  I'll need to figure out how to package the paper so it can be picked up for recycling, and then I'll tackle the inventory.  BTW, I have 30 days to report any discrepancies for free remediation & shipping.  

10th Condition Inspection is complete

 I fetched the RV-12 back home today.  Ed flew me up in the Cirrus.  Nice flight, except for a 20-30 kt headwind.  It was surprisingly smooth. (Cue the violins playing minor key...).   We arrived at Burlington WI just before noon,  I got an excellent briefing on the things they had found.  There were about a dozen issues that many mechanics would have ignored or not even bothered to document, but Advanced Powerplant Solutions really did a great job capturing those little things and debriefing me about them.   Notice that I haven't talked about anything major.  That's because there weren't any! 😁

N76012 inside APS's hangar

Here she is, buried deep inside APS's hangar.  It took them 5 minutes to get her out and put the other planes back in. Their hangar is spotless.  I really felt comfortable with them working on her.

Top View of Engine w/o Shroud

When Van's designed the original RV-12, they appeared to have been very concerned about cooling.  Back in Feb 2015 I spent a fair amount of effort pulling lots of accessories off of the engine and installing a fiberglass shroud that directed ram air over the fins of the cylinders.  It was ugly and interfered with several maintenance actions and I never liked it.  About a year ago, Vans published a letter that amounted to "the shroud doesn't do anything.  You can remove it if you want."  I want.   It was removed by APS and the above picture shows the engine w/o the shroud.  Check out Feb 2015, sections 46-05, --06 and -07 for comparison. 

If all goes well, I should get my first crate from Vans with the RV-15 wing kit!

Garage -> Building Space

 I've been slowly creeping up on the actual conversion of the garage into the building space for the -15, mostly because it means that Lada & I will not be able to park inside until the project is moved out to the airport and I'd like to minimize her inconvenience.  Having said that, I cleaned off an old, unused desk that's been gathering dust & junk and turned it into a usable desk.  I moved a computer that I bought about 5 years ago to be a high end flight simulator, but I simply never got into simulated flight.  For one, I dislike the Windows operating systems and could never properly configure all of the myriads of drivers and other files to make everything work.  Secondly, I just don't enjoy 'flying' a simulator.  I suppose I'm too dependent upon the noise and accelerations to like just flying what I see on the screen.   On the other hand, the giant screens will be great for looking at the plans in large, highly magnified detail.

The kit is supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow ('overmorrow' back when that was a word in common use.)  I'll spend all Friday actually evicting the cars and moving benches, etc and we'll be ready to start inventory.

On the RV-12 front, I received the expected message on Monday that the plane was ready for pickup.  What I wasn't expecting was the invoice was about double what I had guessed -- over $8800.   For "nothing major", that's certainly a lot of work & parts.    Oddly enough, I'm glad that it is what it is.  This indirectly validates that there were items I wasn't attending to and now I feel good about flying her for another 10 years.

Wing kit (partial) shipped!

 Yesterday I received several email from Van's and a trucking company, APS.   It appears that my partial wing kit has actually been crated and shipped.   Van's uses their invoices to document everything, so I had a bit of consternation when I saw another invoice for $$$$, but then noticed the balance due was $0 and there was a line of backordered parts.  I haven't had time to download the plans and attach names to the backordered parts, but I know that the main spars are the big items.   I'll hopefully get that done tomorrow afternoon.

A thread on VAF discussed bucking rivets and I'm a bit confused.  I was under the impression that the plane was designed to be built using only pulled (pop) rivets or squeezed rivets.  I'll have to look into that as I have exactly 1 hour of training in bucking rivets and that was ~15 years ago.

On the RV-12 front, it was nearly ready when I chatted with the shop on Wednesday the 29th.   The person on the phone was not the A&P working on the plane, but thought it would be ready sometime today.  I'm guessing that it'll be Monday or Tuesday.   Logistically, that's fine with me because I don't have time off to go get it until Thursday and/or Friday.   As always, that's going to be weather dependent.  In addition, that's also my estimated window of when the wing kit will arrive.   I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Progress!

 Well.  I finally have something positive to report.    It's been 11 days since I paid the remaining wing kit balance.  I had several email exchanges with the Kit Sales department and after being told "5-10 days after payment" I finally sent a very blunt email to Accounts Receivable and left a similar blunt email.

Good afternoon,

    The operator suggested this followup email to a voice mail I left a few minutes ago.
    I wish to know if you received my payment of $8,242.50 made on 4/17/26.   The transaction reply from
 mail.authorize.net is below.  I made a payment of $3150 on the same day for the empennage kit and received a receipt on 4/20, but I never received a receipt for the $8K to be applied to the balance due of the wing kit.
    My posted kit shipment date was last week, on the 21st.  That was last updated over a month ago.   I have had several email threads with Kit Sales and it appears that they are not able to move forward with providing me an updated shipping estimate until they know that the wing kit is fully paid.
    I am very frustrated by the lack of communication in this process and would greatly appreciate being updated as to what is going on with my order and my payment.  
    If you have not received the payment in question, how do I go about getting it refunded from mail.authorize.net so I may remunerate it to you via a different route? 

Thank you for any available information,
-dbh

Well, the letter and/or voice mail seems to have done the trick.  In the morning I received the receipt along with a notation that the wing kit has been paid in full.  This evening I got a phone call (yes, a live person actually spoke to me) wherein she briefly mentioned the email and then proceeded to ask if Thursday (day after tomorrow) would be acceptable for them to ship my partial kit. "Yes." 

She estimated that it would be about 7 days in transit.   If so, that might not work well with my hope to recover the RV-12 from Wisconsin, but if so, I'll figure it out.

As a little nice addition, someone posted a render of the RV-15 tail feathers.   They look nice.

Still waiting...

So, it's been a week since I paid the final amount due for the wings and paid for the tail section.  Over the last few days I've received electronic receipts for the payments and today an invoice applying the tail kit payment to the actual order of a tail kit.  I have not heard anything about the wing kit.   The last letter stated "once that payment has been received and processed, your kit should be shipped in 5-10 days."   I'm beginning to suspect that 'received' means that it hit their bank but 'processed' means that someone has made an association between the influx of cash and a specific order.  In other words, they haven't processed it yet so the "5-10 days" probably hasn't started yet.

In other news, the RV-12 is getting its first condition inspection by someone other than me.   It's been 10 years of flying and I didn't feel up to doing all of the labor to perform the Rotax mandated 5-year replacement of all of the rubber components in the engine.  In addition, I'm a subscriber to Mike Busch's philosophy that strict time-based replacements often induce more maintenance failures than they prevent.  That's especially true for me with respect to pulling parts off the engine that I haven't ever touched since building.    The other reason I hired a professional shop is that I want someone else to inspect her for me because I'm not a professional A&P and I don't know what I don't know I'm looking at.   I really want a professional 2nd opinion of the condition of my plane with respect to its being in condition for safe operation.

Here she is in the hangar at Burlington Municipal Airport, Wisconsin (KBUU).   Hopefully I'll have 8 hours off during good weather to go get her when it's done.

I also overcame a mental roadblock of 'paralysis by analysis' with respect to migrating my tools from the hangar to the garage. I kept getting mentally stalled by not being able to figure out which tools to move and where to store things until I knew when the wing kit was going to arrive.  I started the process by realizing that it was OK to buy a new rolling tool cart rather than move the one I have.  Now I can start cleaning up loose tools in the garage and put them into the tool cart.  That will free up some storage racks in the garage which I can ...  You get the picture.    I find that once I get something started, I typically can keep up good momentum.   Here's the first picture of the modification of the garage; said new rolling tool cart, a recycled kitchen table and a migrated work table from the hangar.

Another Delay, another Kit ordered

Well, it looks like I'm was almost back into the waiting game.  I just got a letter from Van's that they were not going to ship my wing kit next week.   One of the key items--the main wing spars--have been problematic for them to obtain.  Today, they got their shipment of spars and found them non-airworthy.   From their letter...

WHAT HAPPENED

A large batch of RV-15 spar webs were returned from the anodizing process with both cosmetic and structural defects that make them unsuitable for use in your airframe. We rejected the entire affected lot.  

The letter went on to say that I have the option of getting my partial kit shipped next week and the spars "later", but it will cost me about an additional $700 in shipping.  On the other hand, they are taking orders for Tail Kits and are optimistic that those will start shipping "in May" at a rate of 2/day.  They explicitly stated that it was possible that Tail Kits might hit the door prior to complete Wing Kits.

I just ordered the Tail Kit (by pulling funds from the recently opened HELOC) and will wait to see when they publish an estimated shipping date, and possibly an updated ship date for the wing kit.  I doubt the latter, as they said that they're not even sure when they're going to get another batch of wing spars (from a different provider.)

While I was typing this entry, I was been debating what to do with my options for the wing kit.  I finally realized that I want to get going on this project since I've been waiting ever since July of last year.  I'll spend the $700 for the spar shipment when it's ready.   There's a reasonable amount of work that can be done w/o the spars (e.g., inventory, demurring, assembly of the ailerons and flaps) while waiting for the spars.  If needed, I'll work on the tail kit if the spars still are delayed excessively (which I doubt.)

I sent the letter saying that I want the partial kit option.  I explicitly pointed out that I have yet to receive my request for final payment and they said to go ahead, so I've made both payments and will hopefully have my partial wing kit within a week or so.

Let's get this project going!

Update on N76012

 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!

Financing finally in place

I finally got the home equity line of credit established.   I have decoupled the financing and the building, which was something that had been worrying me.   With the HELOC in my back pocket, I'll write to Van's today and ask them to confirm the 4/21 date or provide me an update.

Quite frankly, I've been a bit confused since I expected them to have called me a few weeks ago to give me the final price (balance due, sales tax & shipping).   We'll see what happens when I send them a "what's up?" email.

-----

Update:  Got a short, but nice reply from Kit Sales at Van's.  They confirmed that the expected shipping date is indeed 4/21.  What's changed in the intervening decade is that they no longer collect the shipping charges.  Instead, I'll be contacted directly by the shipping company and will pay them directly prior to their release of the shipment.   I'm still waiting for Van's to ask for the final payment, but I'm sure they'll get around to it 😁.

Delivery Date un-Delayed ?

 So, the letter I got from Van's the other day said they'd update their database of predicted shipping dates.  As of 30 minutes ago, my ship date now reads 4/21/26.   I've been moved forward by 2 months instead of back a month.

I have a guess as to what's going on.  (This assumes that the above date is not an error and will vanish in the next few days.)   I originally submitted my order and deposit back in July 2026 when Van's officially announced that they were taking orders.  I have to admit, I really didn't think they would hit their promised Dec 31, 2026 initial shipping date and lined up neither finances nor construction space.  I was surprised when they called me in the 2nd week of December and I had to give up my place in line.  This was totally fair as it was outlined in the agreement.  I also gave up $1000, which again, was fair because it was in the agreement.

I lined up finances (I sign the loan documents next Tuesday), the construction space (our garage) and re-placed my order along with a second deposit, on January 19.  I never received my first deposit back, but after several email & phone exchanges, they found the first deposit and added it to the second deposit and did not debit the $1000 in the process😊.

My suspicion is that since my July 2025 deposit is still in their account, I am being sequenced by that deposit date instead of the Jan 2026 deposit. 

Like I said, the site's database was updated only about an hour ago.  I'll be expecting a call from them with (1) a confirmation of expected shipping date, (2) quoted shipping costs and (3) a request for payment of the balance due.

Delivery Date Delayed

I got a letter from Van's yesterday.   Basically, they bit off more than they could chew and have some indigestion with respect to assembling, crating and shipping wing kits.   VAF is full of frustrated posts regarding wing kits that did not have the main spars included, but are backordered without an expected shipping date.  As you can imagine, it's very frustrating to have lots of parts (ribs, skins, etc) but no spar upon which to attach them.

Van's letter explicitly acknowledges this and states that they are holding shipments for approximately 30 days while they get back on track with their suppliers.  They will be expediting delivery of the backordered spars (and other items) to the kits that have already been shipped, and then resume shipments of complete kits.

While I'm not happy that my delivery date is being pushed back, I am very happy that Van's is doing it.  This is just another variation of "do it right or do it over" and I'll have a full kit (and hopefully updated instructions) when my kit ships sometime in July.

New name for the blog

This blog was originally named "The Building of N76012", which is the N-number of the RV-12 that I started in 2013.  Now that I'm preparing to build an RV-15, the name needs to be changed.  I don't have an N-number for the RV-15 yet, so it's not an option to just extend the title to include the new N-number.  That's also not particularly elegant.

Turns out, I already had a name and it fits perfectly.   "Hill's Air Force LLC" is a small holding company for the express purpose of titling all of my aviation assets.  Specifically, N76012 and two hangars at the Delaware Municipal Airport, H-10 and H-11.  With the upcoming addition, HAF will be comprised of two aircraft in two hangars.  Now the blog name is quite fitting.

I won't change the URL and will leave that as homage to the RV-12.

Hey, I'm Back

Hey, I'm Back

I'm back because I did a thing.   

In addition to flying N76012 more than 400 hours since the last time I posted 8 years ago,  I've also continued to expand what I want out of my aviation life.  I sold N7623V (and still have a bit of heartache) and became a partner in N883CD, an early model Cirrus SR-22.  I've renewed my tailwheel endorsement.  I got some multi-engine training.  I've been to Airventure (twice).  I earned my ATP certificate (not that I will ever need it). I joined the Commemorative Air Force and am checked out in an antique PT-26.   And I'm bored.

So, like I said, I did a thing.   I put down a deposit and am waiting for the first kit of a Van's RV-15 to be delivered to my house so I can start all over and build another plane.   My lovely wife, Lada, graciously let me have the 2 car garage at our previous house when I built N76012 and she stepped up and has bequeathed the new 3 car garage for this new project.   Delivery is tentatively set for mid June 2026.  I'm guessing I will need 3 years to build the RV-15.   When it's airworthy, I will sell my share of the Cirrus (again, with much heartache) and fly both of my RV's for a few years (perchance a decade?) before Father Time says it's time for me to make my last flight.

Why the RV-15?

Photo taken from Van's website

It's different.  The RV-12 is a fantastic, low, slow fun training airplane but it really isn't useful for going places because it's slow and has a very small luggage space and grosses out when you add 30 lb of luggage with me & Lada.   I love the Cirrus, but she is expensive.  Not only that, they cost a lot!  In exchange for that money, you can go fast to paved airports.  Paved airports with long runways.  The Cirrus crosses the fence at 77 kt.   3000' is a relatively short runway.  This is great for cities and such.

The RV-15 is very different.  It's the perfect plane to scratch several itches.   It's fast enough to be a good "go somewhere" plane, similar to the Cardinal.   It's got gobs of useful load so we can carry large suitcases (she prefers to be well prepared in her travels) or -- God forbid -- camping equipment.   It's a tail dragger.  It's designed for off-airport operations.   I doubt that I'll do a lot of off-airport ops, but I am surprised that I find myself looking forward to doing some camping.   Lada loves the outdoors, so this will be a nice tool for her to explore the US's wilderness.  Van's is predicting about 400' for both take off and landing.   Fudge that by 50 % and that's 600'.   There are lots and lots of small, grass fields that are 1000'.   If I really get ballsy, there are many more open fields of that length.   Who knows?   Maybe this machine will let the two of us go out to somewhere in Montana, find a field in the middle of nowhere, camp out on a moonless night, let my eyes will adapt to the darkness and I will see the Milky Way with my own eyes.