It isn’t that hard, and learning keeps us flexible. In order to give you the best experience, we use cookies and similar technologies for performance, analytics, personalization, advertising, and to help our site function. Johnson is really excited about the fact that engine temperatures are quite low. There also may be a new grip in the airplane’s future—a shame, actually, because the nice teakwood grips fit the hand very nicely.).
Back to our landings though—the best thing I can say about an airplane is that it is predictable and goes exactly where I want and expect it to go. Rian took over the engineering job on the taildragger shortly after the release of the original tricycle version, and has tired to stick to Part 23 certification standards (not required for homebuilts, of course) throughout the development of the new gear. The changes developed in the RV-14A were incorporated in the RV-14, and improvements made to the -14 were then backed into the -14A, so work on both has improved the breed in general. Seager headed us over to his usual training haunt—the runway at Scappoose, Oregon—for some touch and goes. Bringing the flaps down, we tried again—and this time were rewarded with a break typical of a Piper Cherokee—benign, slow, and well-mannered.
The newest design to come out of Van’s prolific kit company, it was described as a larger alternative to the RV-7, with the cruise performance of an RV-9, but capable of gentleman’s aerobatics. Taildragger or tricycle—two choices, neither of them wrong. Your IP: 180.149.229.6 additional cushion brought my eye height up to where I could see nicely over the nose. Set where you live, what language you speak, and the currency you use. The taildragger sits nose-high and proud, but pilots shouldn’t worry too much about a lack of visibility. Most pilots will never routinely operate from strips less than 1000 feet in length, and either one will do just fine at this distance with proper training and practice. I married into ownership of (and routinely fly) the RV-6 built from the fourth kit released by Van’s several decades ago, so I have a good grasp of the entire spectrum of the side-by-side RV lineup—and this is a great example of evolution at work.
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Since we rarely raise the flaps incrementally in an RV (usually wanting them to go all the way up on a go-around or touch and go), I’d prefer to see a single forward push on the switch take them all the way up. The most popular color? Generating the detailed instructions to go along with the kit components—and making sure that they were readable and accurate—was a monumental task for the tiny engineering staff, so builders were easily able to outpace the team. Bill Piper was a great promoter and tirelessly promoted the J-3 into a household name, every small taildragger seemed to be called a Cub.
By the time we’d had a nice lunch in the quaint little town of Vernonia, it was time to head the plane back to Van’s. That’s right, I cheated! Either one will do most any mission the average RV pilot can imagine, so pick what looks best to you—the one you want to see when you open the hangar door. The older -14A was in the shop, getting a good going-over after putting on nearly 600 hours in three short years, but looking none the worse for the wear. Take full advantage of our site features by enabling JavaScript. This is completely normal for most aircraft—the surprise was simply that in most RVs you can fly virtually any coordinated maneuver (including simple aerobatics) with your feet almost flat on the floor. The truth is that once you get them off the ground, it is hard to tell them apart. The prototype that we flew was equipped with very nice wooden stick grips sporting trim, flap, and push-to-talk switches.