Homebuilder's Workshop - August 2012

RV-14

By Ed Wischmeyer

Outside Van’s booth early in the morning before the crowds arrived. (Ed Wischmeyer)On Sunday at AirVenture, Van’s Aircraft’s Chief Engineer, Ken Krueger, was dropping helpful hints about a new RV-14. Carbon fiber, twin engine, amphibious, vertical takeoff and landing – and aerobatic! You get the idea… Van himself mentioned an RV-14, but gave no details, and for all I knew he was pulling my leg, too. But then on Monday, there was the RV-14 prototype.

The superficial description is that it is a two-seat RV-10, with slightly smaller dimensions. In a sense that’s true, but the start of the RV-14 was with people who were building RV-7s and putting in tons of junk so that they were overweight, as were the pilots, frequently. Krueger said that some of those were so overweight as to be miniature F-104s, a nice exaggeration. So in one sense, the RV-14 is a gadgeteer’s version of the RV-7, able to carry more weight, and with more room.

But the most interesting part of the RV-14 is construction details. The goal of the -14 was to build on everything Van’s has leaned in building kits over the last four decades, and they’ve learned a lot. The -14 shares components with other RVs, but it also has new features.

What’s shared? The wings have the same chord and airfoil as the RV-10, but are structurally different – no surprise. The ailerons are identical to RV-10 ailerons, and the flaps are like shortened versions of the RV-10 flaps. The fuselage is all-new, but aft of the baggage bulkhead, it has the same external dimensions as the RV-9/A –more on that later. The tail surfaces are comparable to RV-9/10 tail surfaces, but there is only one trim tab.

There are lots of new details in the structure. The holes are pre-punched to #30 and #40, so you no longer have to drill them out before dimpling them. The longerons are sheet metal instead of extruded, so they come pre-punched and don’t have to be bent in a vice with a hammer. Look for the -14’s tail cone to migrate to the -9. The landing gear is flat leaf and stouter than other RVs because as RVs have become more popular, pilots with – ahem – less finesse are landing them harder than the original target market. The landing attaches to the fuselage, not the wing spar, and the wing attach is outside the fuselage, not inside.

Under the fuselage is a four-into-one exhaust system for the preferred Lycoming O-390 engine. On the prototype, the induction air intake is in the left cooling air inlet instead of under the chin. That costs a half-inch of manifold pressure but looks oh so much cooler.

But wait, there’s more! Building on the experience of the E-LSA RV-12, which comes with all the avionics and a wiring harness, the RV-14 comes with wiring runs defined throughout the structure, a wiring harness, and even with Molex connectors at all the right places for easy assembly and disassembly. In fact, the -14 will come with a wiring harness and a backplane with D-sub connectors so that avionics can be easily connected and changed. There will be “stock” avionics, including ADS-B. And all the wiring will be open source so that anybody can connect to it.

The -14 is aerobatic in the traditional Van’s sense, meaning loops and rolls. It has been through a complete spin series with test pilot Len Fox, and although there are no problems, the recovery takes more turns than the FAA would like on a certificated airplane, so the -14 will not be blessed for deliberate spins.

The -14 fuselage will not accommodate a sliding canopy, so only a tilt-up will be offered. However, they have gone to some lengths to make the canopy much easier to install than on other RVs.

In terms of control feel and handling, the -14 is somewhere between the cruisers –the RV-9 and RV-10 – and the sporty RV-7. They’ll be fine tuning the -14’s control harmonization before the it is finalized, but it speaks well of Van’s that they not only will do that work but also can recognize that it needs to be done.

The prototype RV-14 was beautifully built and would probably win an award for craftsmanship at Oshkosh, where the competition was ferocious. Editor’s note: awards had not been announced before In Flight’s press deadline. Check back next month for AirVenture award winners. 

Wing kits will probably be available this fall, with quick builds coming out after the regular kits are finalized.