The Van's Aircraft RV-14 is an American

aerobatic Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aerial" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and glid ...

kit aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

Richard VanGrunsven Richard E. "Dick" VanGrunsven (born 1939) is an American aircraft designer and kit plane manufacturer. The number of VanGrunsven-designed homebuilt aircraft produced each year in North America exceeds the combined production of all commercial gen ...

and produced by Van's Aircraft. It was introduced at

AirVenture EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ...

in July 2012. The aircraft is supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Bernard, Mary and Suzanne B. Bopp: ''Van's Aircraft: RV-14'', Kitplanes, Volume 29, Number 12, December 2012, page 19-21. Belvoir Publications. As of November 2022, 207 RV-14s have been completed and flown.

Design and development

Derived from the four-seat RV-10, RV-14 design work was commenced several years before its 2012 debut. It is an

two-seater designed to accommodate large pilots and offer greater baggage space, to comply with the US experimental amateur-built aircraft rules. The design goals included improved visibility, a wider cabin, a low landing speed achieved by larger and more effective flaps, good rate-of-climb and

glide ratio In aerodynamics, the lift-to-drag ratio (or L/D ratio) is the lift generated by an aerodynamic body such as an aerofoil or aircraft, divided by the aerodynamic drag caused by moving through air. It describes the aerodynamic efficiency under give ...

, landing gear that meets

FAR Part 23 The Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) are rules prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) governing all aviation activities in the United States. The FARs comprise Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). A wide variety o ...

certification standards and an airframe designed to accommodate the

Lycoming IO-390 The Lycoming IO-390 engine is a horizontally opposed, four-cylinder aircraft engine, manufactured by Lycoming Engines. There is no carburetted version of the engine, which would have been designated O-390 and therefore the base model is the ...

powerplant. It features a cantilever

low-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, a two-seats-in-

side-by-side configuration Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

enclosed cockpit under a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; so ...

, fixed

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

and a single engine in

tractor configuration In aviation, the term tractor configuration refers to an aircraft constructed in the standard configuration with its engine mounted with the propeller in front of it so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. Oppositely, the pusher c ...

. The RV-14 is built from

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

sheet. The prototype was fitted with a Lycoming IO-390

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...

powerplant. The kit is intended to be easier to assemble than earlier Van's designs through the use of pre-punched and pre-formed

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

longerons, pre-installed wiring, plug-in

avionics Avionics (a blend word, blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, ...

, a pre-trimmed and ready-to-install bubble canopy, pre-welded canopy frame, pre-fitted engine baffles as well as matched pre-punched holes. The RV-14 offers several instrument panel choices, including one designed to take modern electronic flight instrument systems (EFIS), like the

Dynon SkyView Dynon is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Denis Dynon (1822-1863), Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross *Kevin Dynon (1925-2017), Australian footballer *Moira Lenore Dynon (1920-1976), Australian chemist and community activist ...

, without any additional cutting, as well as a blank panel that can be customized by the builder. In July 2020 Van's introduced a new version of the Lycoming IO-390, designated as the IO-390-EXP119 and optimized for the RV-14. The engine has new exhaust and induction systems and puts out . It has a revised oil sump, aluminum induction pipes, oil pump and accessory case that saves of weight. With this powerplant the RV-14 is faster in cruise speed and climbs faster. The manufacturer offers aircraft type transition training and has built an RV-14 for this purpose.

Variants

;RV-14 :Two-seat

conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

variant with tailwheel. ;RV-14A :Two-seat

variant.

Specifications (RV-14A)

References

External links

*
Video review by Mary Grady, AVwebReview by Marc Cook, AVwebAVweb Flight Review: Van’s RV-14A
{{Aerobatics Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft RV-14 Low-wing aircraft Aerobatic aircraft