Gary Zilik's
RV-6A S/N 22993

Why I created this web page

I am writing this web page for two simple reasons. First and foremost is to share information with other builders and secondly to have fun developing html code, also a learning process. Most of the information is conveyed by the use of pictures and a few words to describe the picures. During the building process I have found that pictures answer more questions than words could ever begin to describe. I have to thank the many Van's Aircraft builders who have gone before me and left a trail of web pages littered with pictures of how "They did it"

I have followed Van's plans and manual as best I could. I have made mistakes, most of them minor and a few that needed Van's support help and new parts. Along the way I found Frank Justice's excellent supplimental instructions and urge all builders to download a copy. Franks supplement along with Van's manual and plans were studied over and over agian until I had a complete understanding of the task at hand.

Van advertises "Total Performance", well it takes "Total Commitment" to build this total performance aircraft. My life revovles around building this great plane. I eat, sleep and work thinking about the current problem I have encountered, or what the next step will be. The house is crumbling around us and the cars are dropping parts every where we go, but the plane is slowley being built and will someday soon be done. I could build at a slower pace and devote more time to other activities, but I am already a slow builder and would like to finish the plane in this century. I imagine the second one (plane not century) will progress much faster.

So, if your up to it, surf through the pages and see how this amature builder did things. By no means am I trying to show you how it should be done, just how I did it. As mentioned earlier I followed Van's plans as close as possable and as far as I know did not stray from them on any major component. But the plans and the manual end once the airframe is compete and this is when I started asking all the dumb questions about how the rest of it was put together. Check out how I did the rest and if you see something horribly wrong, please let me know.


Why Van's Aircraft RV-6A

The RV-4 is what cought my eye. These two really sleek airplanes would arrive in formation, land and refuel at the little airport I was currently flying out of. One day they were on the ground long enough for me to wander over and look at them. The first thing I noticed was the "Experimental" placard that both planes had. I had no idea what this ment. I new about home builts, but had previous notions that they were little tube and fabric play toys, not serious flying machines. One thing led to another and soon I was ordering my very own kit aircraft. My wife did not like the tandem seating of the 4, so we decide on the 6A.