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Good job with the coordination in the turns. My problem with holding altitude in turns, high altitude orientation for instrument flight, is that they are horrible energy management for low altitude work like takeoff and landing. As a crop duster, I understand what the airplane wants to do in every turn, as Wolfgang keeps encouraging us. It wants to lower its nose to maintain trimmed airspeed rather than altitude. This is low altitude orientation where horizontal limitations are as great as vertical limitations. Airspeed, and not altitude, is life down here and altitude maintenance at any cost does cost lives. How do crop dusters make greater than 60 degree banks a thousand times a day without stall or even excessive fatigue? It is our legs that fatigue, not our arms at 1 g 70 degree banks. The free ground effect energy of the six inches to three feet swath run and pitching to just over, not well over, the wire or tree gives us zoom reserve airspeed for the turn back into the field 50 feet upwind (wind management.) A slight turn downwind will give us a bit more room unless headwind is enough to reduce radius of turn back. As soon as we turn back toward the field, we release back pressure on the stick. We turn steeper than we think necessary to be sure we don't end up putting a down wing into a wire getting aligned with the crop row. The nose will go down under the target unless we take some tuck out, but not much wing load... maybe 1.1 g. We level the wing before pull up to arrive again at six inches to three feet in the field. OK, not necessary in the pattern. However, the airplane trimmed for Vy for takeoff will decelerate below Vy in the turns crosswind and downwind if the pilot pulls back on the yoke. Exceeding the angle of attack is when the stall happens. A pilot pulling on the yoke is what causes it. Why are we teaching students to stall in the pattern where it is generally fatal?

Steam gauges on glass panel? Wrong in so many ways!

45 degrees is definitely where stick and rudder issues start showing up. At that point, the plane starts wanting to tip over, shallow out, descend. Those are the turns that I have to hit every once in a while to make sure they stay clean. I don’t go to 60 degrees toooo often as it just seems a little huge…I dunno, maybe I should. Under normal circumstances, you don’t really steepen past 30 degrees too often but I guess too much focus on “normal circumstances” can leave you ill-equipped when the “abnormal circumstance” decides to come knockin…

Thanks Steve. It's good for all of us to practice the basics, rather than aimlessly boring holes in the sky. Cheers from downunder. 😁

Takes me back to my early training. Thank you. What are going to do next time?

Great place. Like your videos, but straight-in approach in non-towered airports? I don't!

The two bits of difficulty I had when learning soft fields in the RV12 were finding the right amount of initial back pressure (not sending the nose flying up into the air) and not climbing away too quickly. The RV12 is such an enthusiastic climber, when trimmed for takeoff, it just wants to plow out of ground effect and fly away. Especially when the weather is cold and you’re by yourself…you can be at pattern altitude in like 45 seconds…

Always a pleasure to see a new episode

Actually, the soft field takeoff is also the most efficient short field takeoff. Notice that crop dusters and STOL guys use this technique for the shortest takeoff roll. Actually, the airplane will and does fly much at a much slower airspeed in low ground effect. While the big engine STOL guys continue climbing out of ground effect, the normal airplanes doing STOL (and crop dusters) immediately level in low (six inches) ground effect and accelerate much more rapidly than on the surface with the drag of wheels. By accelerating rapidly level in low ground effect, they can then zoom over (as Wolfgang points out) the obstruction with the outcome much less in doubt at Vcc rather than at Vx. Why are normal pilots taught the far less efficient and far more dangerous short field technique?

14 seconds, that’s quick! I’ll have to time the SportCruiser that I fly. It’s hard to hold the plane in ground effect

Same at 2 stroke oil. Loosen the lid and squeeze.

😊

What a nice treat, for both you and your grandson to share a flight together. He’s so close to being a pilot himself. Maybe one day down the road, when you’re ready to hang up your wings, you could give him the RV…at a good price.

I enjoy your videos. Keep em coming!!

Thanks Steve. Great to see the love of aviation continues in your family. ❤

Nice country sites in your area. Up here in New York, too many commercial jets, cars, people and buildings.

Thank you. Waiting for part two.

Hi, another great video, thank you. The Micco carries a huge amount of fuel. 73 gallons / 68 useable. Quite a bit of weight there which will impact overall performance. Like you, I'm tickled with my RV-12iS. Only 20 gallons fuel, but it will do 120 knots. I tend to buzz around at ~90 knots. It flies well there and at ~4,600 rpm burns a whopping 2.8 gph!

That is an *epic* displaced threshold…must be for noise abatement. I’m not seeing any wacky obstacles. Normally, I’d check the A/FD but it’s late and I’m feeling particularly lazy

When you took off a notice you literally shoved you right foot to the floor then backed off as you built airspeed. I have to do the same thing in my RV 12. Keep that grin.

My wife and I are enjoying flying to many small towns in Iowa with my RV-12. We usually borrow an airport courtesy car and explore the town.

You’re just stoking my dreams! I saw the RV-12is at Oshkosh and I haven’t been able to shake it. Thank you for this video. I’m enjoying everything on your channel!

I really like the iS. I had one of the very first RV-12 kits that came out (number 18). I flew it for a couple of years and really enjoyed it, hey it was far superior to the C-150 I owned before that. I eventually sold it to move up and I now have an RV-8, but there may come a time when I need to down size and if so, the RV-12 will be my choice again.

The RV 12 is the one I’d get, if I was to get one.

Thanks Steve. Vans call it Total Performance.

Appreciate the video

Lovin Your RV-12 Airplane Videos!

That looked like it would've been a fun ride in the honda jet

Thanks for the video. With such a small measure of additive, I would consider keeping a 1 gallon can of fuel to mix it with then funnel

The black tank treatment I use in our camper comes in the exact same bottle. Good for whoever molds those bottles.

Have you considered using MOGAS instead of AVGAS then you would not need Decalin? Every Rotax I have seen recommends not using AVGAS...

Way to keep that Tesla on the centerline!!

I love engineering too. I noticed the absolutely beautiful paint on your plane. I hadn’t ever seen the finish so up close before. It is just spectacular looking. Looking forward to the next video you teased.

I'll wait for that answer. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Where is a $75/hour Cirrus?

Brother, at 3:33, that is no RV-6. RV-6 is side by side. But I love your videos. Thanks for posting them.

Yep, on spark plug will increase the EGT.

Can you divulge how much your mechanic charged for the inspection?

Appreciate your videos so much! Really a bit scary about the plug wire. I'm an engineer but just student pilot, and will se if I can't look at the design w.r.t. plugs and see what they've done.

Hi, re: swapping tires right to left to optimize wear -To clarify, you actually need to split the rims and re-mount the tires inside to outside on the same rim. What was the outer edge of the tire then becomes the inner edge. I just did this at ~200 hrs on my RV-12. One caveat - the tires when new come marked with a red dot on one side that is to be matched to the stem. I believe the red dot indicates the "lightest" side of the tire and matching to the stem (believed to be heavy) gives you the best as-mounted initial balance, without actually doing a dynamic balance as is done when mounting car tires. I found that after swapping my tires around on the rims I had a small amount of vibration when (only) at high speed on the runway. I believe that is because after swapping, the red dot is now on the opposite from the stem, therefore introducing some mis-balance. I haven't yet investigated having them balanced. Great video. I'm surprised you only got a High EGT condition and not a Lane Fault when the spark plug wire separated. Like your plane, my Hobbs meter hours are slightly greater than Tach hours. Not sure why that is. Yes, I would have informed my passenger of what might be an increased risk, though likely minimal risk. All the best. Scott

Hi thanks for sharing this video. Can you please tell me where you got that Jack? What a perfect way to get the plane off the ground for wheel service.

Bought an RV. Thanks to Trump for all the tax breaks! Sucks to be poor

How much more $ will the IFR package be ?

Thanks for sharing, love the breakdown of costs versus driving. Dupage is a great airport that has always treated me well.

Been there done that. Gotta know when to turn around. Thunderstorms in summer and ice in the winter.

I enjoyed learning aviation weather in flight school. In my days we planned, briefed, and filed over the phone WXBrief. Fore flight is impressive but still use E6B manual flight planning & low altitude charts as backup. What’s most impressive is your decision to safely Go or No Go. Appreciate the uploads.

Interesting video. Makes a strong case for getting your instrument rating if you want to use GA for serious travel. Given what was shown, this was an “easy” flight if instrument rated and proficient.

Good job with checking and turning back. I flew a 3500 mile weekly pipeline loop in the Midwest and often had to get up close in marginal conditions and lay up. Three to five days generally worked, but it was continuous for two weeks occasionally. DOT shutdown of a line not flown in 21 days made skipping a week problematic. With family and passengers, there should not be even this much pressure.

Good call to abort the mission Steve. Was it turbulent under those Cu's? Would love to see how a condition inspection is done.