The 16-month RV-7
by Bob Collins

Mark Chamberlain and his friend, Ileska, fly Mark's new RV-7 over some gorgeous scenery between Prescott and Wickenburg, Ariz.

I first met Mark Chamberlain at the 2005 RV builders BBQ at Oshkosh. He was part of the "Arizona connection" chilled by Wisconsin's 70-degree night-time temperatures. It turns out, though, that Mark was burning it up with speed on his project. In just 16 months, Mark is flying. "When I looked at most of the builders out there finishing up in 5 to 6 years I really hoped it was possible to build a plane faster than that as I really wanted to fly but couldn't find any evidence of it, so I created my own," he says.

And, actually, the rapid construction timetable was delayed more than he had planned. He originally figured on a 12-month build.

And did I mention it was a slo-build kit?

I exchanged a series of e-mails with Mark about his project.

Q: How did you decide on the RV-7 as a project?

A: The idea actually came around about 6 years ago when I built a gyroplane (RAF 2000). After building it I had flown it for a while and become bored with it as it was pretty slow. A guy in the hanger across from me (Tom was his name) had built a Mustang 2 and I loved that thing and wanted to build one. After asking Tom if he had any advice he said "if I did it again I'd build an RV", at this point I had never heard of RV's but I started to look in to it. Just about that time life threw me a curve ball and I ended up selling my house and other "toys" (including the Gyro) and moved to California for a while for work. When I came back to Arizona I got to a position where building was possible again (garage large enough, finances etc.) so I took the plunge and went for it. It did take be about 6 months to actually get around to calling up Van's and actually place that order (making the commitment) though.

Q: Sixteen months? Was that the original plan or did it just work out that way?

A: Believe or not the original plan was 12 months, I wanted to fly it to Oshkosh in 2006. I would have done it too (I think) but I changed jobs in the middle of building and it slowed me up as I was traveling much more on business so I wasn't at home in the evenings to work on the project, I would be gone about 3 to 4 nights a week. When you're not physically in the same location as the project, well that's one hurdle that is difficult to overcome.

Q: What do you do for a living, Mark? Where you live? And did your life adjust to the RV project (in other words did your life change much once you started the project?) or did the RV project adjust to your life? (which I guess pretty much repeats question

A: I am a software engineer (Pre-Sales Consultant is the "official" title) and I have lived in Arizona since 1992. Before that I lived in Germany for two years, a year in Greece before that and I am originally from a small village near Nottingham, England.

My life changed big time when I started the RV. I treated it like a second job; as soon as I came home from work I would change clothes, eat dinner then right out in to the garage for five or six hours, sometimes more depending on how early I needed to be up for work the next day. At the weekend I would put in 15 hour days more often than not (it became kind of a challenge as well as an obsession). It's really strange now N234C is flying as I sometimes wander in to the garage without knowing why.

Q: Was the plane built pretty much to plans or did you do a lot of things differently? (I realize you've already given me some of the specs -- and cool pictures -- but could you go into why you chose, for example, ECI Titan and other options?

A: The plane was pretty much built to plans as far as the airframe goes, I didn't feel qualified to change that (or see the point in it as Van's did such a good job). Everything was primed with Akzo Milspec Primer (and yes I did go through the "primer wars" on the forums). I got to a stage where I figured it was faster to just prime the darn thing than spend any more time thinking or arguing about it. I chose the ECI Titan engine for a couple of reasons: a friend of mine (Darwin Barrie) chose the engine for his plane and was very happy with it, plus Darwin bought it off of Robbie Attaway of Attaway Air here in town who builds the engines. After meeting Robbie I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to have someone local build it. Robbie did an awesome job with the engine.

We also had it ported, flow tested and a five-angle grind job done on the valves, Robbie took care of all that for me, he even came to my house (an hour drive for him) several times not only to deliver the engine but just to check on my progress after it was mounted. He also came to the hanger and did the first start for me. I went with the Hartzell Blended Airfoil C/S prop after much debating (over other composite props). The decision came down to a couple of things:
serviceability - if something goes wrong with the Hartzell it pretty much doesn't matter where you are, you can probably find a shop to fix it. Also it is priced more reasonable than most of the composite props.

The thing is so smooth it's unreal. I actually had a guy come out this morning to check the balance of the engine and prop and he couldn't get it any better than it was to start with right from the factory.

The panel was pretty much an attempt to get a line somewhere between usefulness and reason. It would have been easy to spend oodles of cash on the panel but I think I went with the right options (Dynon FlightDeck 180 EFIS/EMS, Garmin radio and transponder and several "steam gauges" as backups. I have a Garmin 496 feeding GPS output to the Dynon, TrueTrak Digitrak IIVS autopilot and the Garmin SL40 radio (for automatic frequency changing), everything works really well and I'm very happy with the setup.

Q: Is this your first kit-built plane? How long have you been flying?
Did you own or rent before you built this one?

A: This is my first metal plane. As I mentioned earlier; I built a gyroplane but it really didn't prepare me for a project of this magnitude. I built the gyro in about 3 months and there was none of the solid riveting or metal forming skills required with a metal plane. I'd have to say that I don't think building the gyro helped with any of the skills needed to build the RV, except maybe the panel wiring and how to be patient and study plans until I understand them. The Gyro was a fun little toy though and I really enjoyed building it.

I actually got my pilots license in 1993 but I had flown only about a total of 200 hours when I started building the RV, just never found anything that I liked flying that much, until now that is! When you spend much of your work days sat on commercial airliners; you had better enjoy it when you're up there for fun!

Q: What sort of things did you find -- good or bad -- during your flight test phase?

A: The good thing was just the way the plane handles. For a low-time pilot it's kind of scary because it's a slippery beast and you have to pay attention to it or it will get ahead of you pretty quickly, but at the same time this plane is just a ton of fun and really not that hard to fly (even the fact it is a tail wheel wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be). I made the right decision on the model and I think it will be a long time before I get bored with this one, if ever.

The only squawk I had was an issue with the prop governor; it wouldn't hold RPM, kept going up and down, up and down. Long story short - there was a bad batch of them put out and Van's happened to get them (I think that's how the story went), MT in Florida were very helpful and shipped me out a new one in a couple of days so it's all sorted now. People keep asking me about squawks but that really is the only one I've been very lucky. The plane flew straight and level from the first flight. The ball was in the middle and no heavy wing.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about the day you flew your first flight?

I actually didn't do the first flight, Robbie Attaway did the first 30 minutes for me. I figured it would be sensible to have Robbie (an experienced test pilot as well as a commercial airline captain) do it as I am a low-time pilot with about 16 hours tail wheel experience so if anything went wrong......well, you know. Robbie did a great job, he just checked the whole plane over, taxied it out and took off. Darwin Barrie and I followed Robbie in Darwin’s plane. 

N234C flew pretty much perfect, straight and level with no heavy wing and the ball right in the middle, according to Robbie. I did the second flight a couple of days later and it flew just the same for me.

Q: Have you noticed any anomalies so far?

Nope, nothing except the prop governor which I mentioned earlier: just the RPM creeping up and down but that is fixed now.  Of course the cylinder head and oil temperatures were high for the first 10 hours or so while the engine was breaking in, but they are running fine now, I rarely see a CHT over 350 and the oil runs around 180.

Q: Have you suffered any 'builders'withdrawal' yet? You know, you get so used to building that when you stop building you kind of want to be building again? (I suppose these days that means "are you going to build an RV-10 next?)

Not really. I am still working on things like the wheel pants and gear leg fairings (which are done now). I think it will probably be strange when I finally am "done," but that will be a while, I still have to prep the cowl etc., for paint so there is still plenty of work to be doing in between flying. No plans to build an RV-10 or any other plane right now; I just want to fly for a while and get back in to a "normal" life style (whatever that is). You never know, I may get the bug again further down the road.

Q: If you were to do it again, is there anything you would do differently?

Lot's of things, too many to list, but some of the main ones are:

- Probably not prime, I live in Arizona for goodness sakes.

- I certainly wouldn't be so picky with things like over-squeezed rivets. I spent so much time trying to get things "perfect" when I really should have just moved on. The RV's are way over-built and you can end up making more of a mess of something that is "ok" than it was to start with. Good workmanship is a must but you have to know where to draw the line between reasonable and perfection.

- I probably wouldn't leave all the blue protective material on there if I did it again. Melting the lines with the soldering Iron takes time and I'm only going to end up scuffing it up when I decide to paint it.

Although it looks real purrdy now :-)

Q: Now that you've finished the fly-off phase, where do you plan to go?
What's your plane's mission?

A: I don't think it has a single "mission". I sometimes like to just go up and fly around Phoenix and Arizona State, in between the mountains and over the lakes, across the desert. I also enjoy long cross countries, I would like to spend some time exploring Mexico and I already have a plan to fly to Canada this summer. I expect to put a lot of hours on it in the first couple of years. You can bet I'll be at Osh this year again Bob (if only for the great RV bar-b-q you put on every year).

Q: How did you stay motivated during building?

A: I think obsessed is more the word. The more I did, the more I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have always enjoyed solving problems and there was a lot of them with this project. Just reading the plans where a challenge in themselves (anyone who has built an RV will know what I'm talking about there, except the 10 perhaps, they're much better). I've always just has a problem with leaving things half done; I can't rest while something still needs doing.

Q: What advice do you have for other builders?

If you haven't started yet: really look inside yourself and be honest about whether or not you have the commitment and perseverance to do what it takes to get the project finished, it's bigger than you can imagine, believe me. Lots of people start and never finish and I can see why. If you're trying to get it done quickly like I did you'll need to make huge changes in your life most likely, if you have a family they'll need to help or probably suffer with not seeing you very often. This is a huge learning experience and it's not all pleasant. I was very lucky, my girlfriend Ileska was behind me all the way. Although she was working on her Masters degree at the time she always had time to help me rivet where it was a two-person job (she probably bucks better than I do actually).

Don't underestimate the cost. The first RV ride I took was with a guy here in town. When I asked how much it would cost to build one he said "take the number you're thinking of and triple it", he was right, almost to the dollar (although at the time I thought he was joking).

Use all of the great tools available to you like the RV forums and Dan Checkoway's RVProject.com web site. These sources of information are invaluable and can help you solve the biggest of problems in minutes instead of days.

Plan ahead - when you get home from work and go in to the garage; know what you are going to do, it's easy to stand around for hours scratching your head wondering "what's next".

For folks who are already building: just keep banging those rivets. It REALLY is worth it when you're done! Just do something every day, even if it's just a few minutes. If you want it done quicker don't "find" the time, "make" the time, it's all a matter of priorities. The end justifies the means.

For more information:
Mark's builder log on Expercraft