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!
No comments:
Post a Comment