Roee Kalinsky's RV-7A Project

2011.07.19: Mounted the engine.

2011.07.18: First "landing".  Fuselage is off the saw horses and on the gear.

2010.11.10: The engine arrives!  See log entry.

2010.08.05: Came back from Oshkosh and promptly placed an order with Aero Sport Power for the engine that will be the heart of the beast!  See log entry.  Delivery scheduled for mid-November.

2010.05.08: The wings are fitted to the fuselage for the first time!  This is a huge milestone.  See log entry.

2009.01.06: Here we are at the five year mark.  This project has already taken longer than I expected at the outset, but that's fine by me.  Still enjoying it and learning a lot.  And much of the extra time has been spent on improvements and customizations that will make this an airplane I will truly be happy with, and that matters more to me than getting it done quickly.  Having said that, I am also very much looking forward to flying it one of these days.  So, onwards I go.

2009.01.01: By the new year, Van's "Hobbes Meter" has logged over 6,000 RV aircraft completed and flown, over 700 of which are 7/7A.  Wow!

2007.10.26: For the second time in four years, San Diego and the surrounding areas were ravaged by huge fires propelled by extreme Santa Ana conditions.  The fires, again, came within about 2 miles of my house, which made for a pretty stressful couple of days.  Well, I'm happy to report that nobody I know was hurt, lost a home, or an airplane.  This may sound funny, but to me, losing the airplane would have probably been more tragic than losing the house and everything else in it.  Those four years of hard work couldn't be easily replaced...

2007.10.09: My finishing kit arrived from Van's.  This includes some fun big stuff like the canopy, cowling, engine mount, and landing gear hardware.

2007.07.29: My second trip to Oshkosh AirVenture.  Spent four days at the show.  Great fun, and very educational!

2006.08.22: My little bro is continuing what is now officially a family tradition, embarking on an experimental aircraft project, in his case a self-launching glider.  What can I say, I'm proud of the little bastard!  Check out his newly created project web site here.

2006.08.19: Today we had the annual RV fly-in at EAA Chapter 14.  As often happens (especially when there's an aviation event scheduled) the marine layer didn't burn off until late morning, which kept a lot of would-be attendees on the ground.  But later in the day we got a good showing of RV's (although some too late for their free lunch), including a nice formation arrival by the "power squadron" from the LA basin.  The fly-in is always a good time to see some nice RV's, and meet other RVators and prospective RVators.  I also got a nice mid-project motivational flight, courtesy of local RV-6A pilot Clark Friedgen.  Thanks dude!

2006.04.19: Reserved a tail number for the airplane - N741RK.  I didn't want to get too cute with the tail number.  Just wanted something a little personalized and easy to pronounce.  The '7' might represent the RV-7A heritage of the airplane.  'RK' are my initials, and so '1RK' ("One Romeo Kilo") seems appropriate for my first airplane.  The '4' is just a '4', or maybe a 'for', anyway I needed another digit.  I can't wait to hear "Experimental One Romeo Kilo, reduce speed to one six zero knots" ;-)

2006.04.01: This is a follow on to my Feb 20 entry.  Today was a nice cloudy day, so I went up to shoot some approaches.  On the VOR-A approach to Oceanside (KOKB), in actual IMC, my heading indicator crapped out.  The attitude indicator was still good, so it wasn't that big a deal.  I went missed, flew home, and shot the ILS into Montgomery (KMYF).  Lessons learned/reaffirmed: 1. the training kicked in just like it's supposed to, 2. I calmly slapped an instrument cover on the HI and never gave it a second thought, and 3. did I mention vacuum sucks?!  That's two different vacuum instrument failures in less than six weeks.

2006.02.20: More of a journal entry than news, but today Stacey and I flew back from a nice vacation in Sedona.  I was flying a rented Warrior, my favorite one in the club.  Somewhere around Needles, about a third of the way home, the vacuum pump kicked the bucket.  We were fortunately in marginal VMC (maneuvering around clouds in a scattered/broken layer) at the time, but interestingly enough I still got myself into about a 30 degree bank and moderately nose down attitude in the second or two when my brain was sorting out which was correct: what I thought I was seeing out the window, or what I though I was seeing on the attitude indicator.  Even after I recovered and fully realized that my gyros were gone, they were still surprisingly bothersome.  I found it hard not to look at them until I finally covered them up with a piece of paper.  I obviously remained VFR for the rest of the flight, and we got home without further incident.  But this was a good wake up call.  Lessons learned/reaffirmed: 1. stay sharp on partial panel IFR, 2. go buy some instrument covers, 3. vacuum sucks!  [pun intended]  Dual electrical systems in my RV for sure.

2005.12.20: Got my instrument ticket!  And Stacey got me some IFR cookies to celebrate!

2005.07.28: Arrived at Oshkosh for my first visit to AirVenture.  I could write pages about my three days there, but that couldn't possibly capture the experience for someone who hasn't been there.  Anyway, for me it was a combination of education (seminars, workshops, talking with vendors, builders, and pilots) and pure aviation fun (seeing aircraft on display, the air shows, seeing White Knight w/ SpaceShipOne fly, and just being saturated in all things aviation).

2005.04.14: Picked up my QuickBuild kit (fuselage and wings) from Van's in Aurora, Oregon and drove it home to San Diego.  Read all about it here.

2005.04.07: Elevator construction complete.  Took 100.0 hours.

2005.03.24: Got a call from Van's that my QuickBuild kit is now in Oregon and ready for delivery.

2004.12.29: Rudder construction complete.  Took 60.0 hours.

2004.12.27: Van's Hobbes meter hit 4001 RV's completed and flown.  Nice way to finish out the year!  The tally by model is:

RV-3          220
RV-4        1138
RV-6/6A   1900
RV-7/7A     143
RV-8/8A     474
RV-9/9A     124
RV-10            2

2004.11.04: Today I faxed in an order to Van's for a QuickBuild RV-7A fuselage and wing kit.  I selected the tip-up canopy, two-axis electric trim, steps for both sides, and brake pedals on the pilot side only (I may change my mind on this later).  Delivery is estimated for March 2005, which gives me about 4 months to either find a hangar or clean up the garage.

2004.10.16: Attended the Miramar Airshow.  Despite the tragic death of aerobatic pilot Sean DeRosier on opening day, and a low cloud ceiling on Saturday limiting many of the performances, the airshow was still a great source of inspiration and motivation.  Among the many cool airplanes on display there were two beautiful RV-8A's.

2004.10.04: Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X-Prize!  I'd like to know when it'll become available in kit form.

2004.09.06: Vertical stabilizer construction complete.  Took 40.0 hours.

2004.08.21: EAA Chapter 14 (Brown Field, San Diego) is treating RVators from all over Southern California to pancake breakfast.  An L-39 jet will also be visiting, as well as mayoral candidate Ron Roberts.

2004.07.18: Horizontal stabilizer construction complete, 123.5 hours and six months to the day.  The number of hours turned out substantially longer than average for several reasons:

1. I opted not to wait for an EAA class, so I learned almost every new tool and technique while building the HS.  Much of the time was actually spent experimenting and fine tuning skills on scrap, and gradually gaining efficiency working on actual components.

2. Several hours (and about $100) lost in an unfortunate dimpling mishap.  @#$% happens, lessons learned.

3. Located in San Diego just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean, I chose a corrosion-proofing regimen fit for a navy jet.  This accounted for 15% of overall construction time.

2004.01.18: Actual construction work begins.

2004.01.15: Empennage kit arrived.

2004.01.11: Checked out several nice RV's at the Cable Air Fair.

2004.01.10: First ride in an RV, and I'm still grinning!  Many thanks to Scott Bilinski for taking me up in N616SB, his awesome new RV-8A.

2004.01.08: Avery tool kit arrived minus two items on back order.  Took inventory.

2003.12.31: Ordered empennage kit from Van's, tool kit from Avery.  There's no turning back now.

2003.12.29: Preview plans arrive.

2003.12.23: Launched this web site.

2003.12.19: Ordered RV-7A preview plans from Van's.  Scheduled to arrive 12/29.

2003.12.06: Open house for the new ATC tower at Ramona airport (RNM).  Many interesting aircraft flew in, including a couple of nice RV's.