2. A smooth spinner without screws on the outside was accomplished with an internal
flange inside the spinner with an attached backing plate.
3. The $144 tail-mounted camera has a 170-degree field of view and is wired to the
onboard computer for viewing in flight and for recording.
4. A 7-inch retractable touch-screen computer plays DVDs or CDs. Software includes
a weight and balance program Greg wrote and avionics manuals.
responsible for the firewall forward
of the Beech T-34C Mentor before
becoming a production test pilot. After
1,000 hours of flying for Beechcraft,
he worked as a corporate pilot for several companies. During this time, he
worked with friends to build his first
airplane, a VariEze, in 1978. His career
took him to the airlines, beginning
with Republic Airlines, which through
a series of acquisitions became
Northwest and most recently Delta.
“Once I started flying for the airlines, I
got out of general aviation,” Greg said.
Twelve years ago he earned his helicopter certificate in a Bell 47. “All of the
old smells came back from learning to
fly,” he said. He was hooked again.
Greg built a one-man helicopter, a Revolution Mini 500, and it was
his search in Tulsa for someone willing to share a hangar that led him to Al
Howerton. Al was interested in building a Van’s RV- 8 and at the time Greg
was interested in a Globe Swift, but
realized an RV- 8 would be newer and
faster. Their partnership blossomed
from there.
“We built the RV- 8 as a fairly standard airplane in just nine months,” Greg
said. Even so, it had a number of modifications, some of which found their way
into the RV- 10, too. The RV- 8’s award-winning paint scheme used 14 colors of
automotive paint and was reminiscent
of the street rods that Greg also likes to
build. Over the years he has rebuilt a
basket case 1967 Corvette coupe, customized a 1977 Toyota Corolla, and
rebuilt a 1966 Mustang convertible for
his wife, Kathy.
FIBERGLASS PANEL AND CONSOLE
Two years later Greg was ready to build
again. “We were already sold on the
Van’s aircraft, and the RV- 10 impressed
us since you could load four passen-
gers and bags and be well within the
maximum gross weight and CG. And
as a homebuilt, it opened up a lot of
possibilities for interior configurations
not available on certified aircraft,” Greg
said.
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INSTRUMENT PANEL INSERTS
The panels were made by Ideal Specialty in Tulsa from 1/8-inch
aluminum. They were black anodized, and lettering was laser-etched into the panels.
The left panel contains:
Dual Cheltons
Advanced Flight Systems angle of attack indicator
Rudder trim
Dynon EFIS-D10A
The right panel contains:
Advanced Flight Systems engine monitor
Tru Trak autopilot
Xenarc MDT-X7000 7-inch touch-screen VGA monitor
DVD player
The center avionics stack contains:
Onboard computer
Garmin GMA 340 audio panel
Dual Garmin SL30 nav/comms
Garmin GTX 330 transponder
www.eaa.org 35
