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How The Internet Is Changing The RV Experience by Doug Reeves vansairforce@hotmail.com 
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January 2001 - I spent my lunch hour today up in space looking over the shoulders of astronauts.  Someone at NASA had the good idea of attaching cameras to the astronaut’s helmets, so there I sat eating my sandwich, watching them connect power cables on the International Space Station.  As this transpired I moved a few dollars from my savings account into checking and then checked to see who was playing on Austin City Limits next Sunday.  Willie Nelson.  With ten minutes of lunch left, I caught up on Mike McGee’s trip from Oregon to Venezuela in his RV-4.  A trip to space, the bank, Austin, and finally South America made for a pretty typical Internet lunch hour.

I’ve tried to break down how I believe the Internet has added value to the ‘RV Experience’ in two broad categories, one on a global level and the other locally.  Sure there are some that think the web is an evil thing (and I’m the first to admit that there are some pretty scary parts), but the good far outpaces the bad and with it comes a global virtual community that in my opinion is unmatched by any other of the homebuilt groups.

ON A GLOBAL LEVEL

Message Boards (a.k.a. Discussion Boards)
There are some smart people in this world, most of them smarter than me.  Message boards make it easy to tap into the brainpower of the experienced builders.  For those who’ve never used one, you simple post a question and wait for someone who has an answer to reply.  It acts just like the old cork bulletin board out in the hallway of your office.  Everyone can see the questions and answers so everyone benefits.  This is a nice alternative for those individuals who don’t particularly like to use mailing lists (described later).  Several ‘dynamic’ areas of my site, VAF-World Wide Wing web site (www.vansaircraft.net), are essentially message boards with fancy names.  Besides the ‘main’ discussion board where all general questions are posted (called Post/Answer Questions) there are a few specialized ones:

Classifieds
No need to explain this.  If you want to sell something or want to buy something, this is a way to get the word out – free and instantaneous. Over 15,000 people visited the site during January 2001, so this is a smart place to post your ad.  Someone in Australia can post a listing just as easily and as quickly as someone in Kansas – all for free.  When the item is sold you can simple post a ‘reply’ to the original message with the word ‘Sold’ in the subject line.

Vendor Specific Discussion Boards 
This is an idea that actually came to me in the shower - most of the good ones do.  Several of the advertisements on the World Wide Wing site have a ‘Discussion Board’ link under them.  These businesses agreed to have someone from their company periodically check for questions and post appropriate answers.  You can think of these as  ‘virtual fly-in vendor booths’ – a place where you always can get access to a factory representative.  This straight from the horse’s mouth approach helps keep misinformation and rumors from starting or spreading.  It also lets the vendors know exactly what their potential and current customers want in a product.  All free.  No waiting.  It’s 2 a.m. and you have a question about fixed pitch propellers?  Post to the Sensenich discussion board.  Ed Zercher of Sensenich will answer it.  You can't get much better than that.

The Upcoming Events Board
RV gatherings are numerous and sometimes planned with only a few days notice.  Let the world know about your event here with a minimum of effort.

Building Milestones Board
Brag here.  Finishing a component is big news to those of us building, but you can only talk to the family members about it so many times before you get THE LOOK.  This board allows you to share your milestones (no matter how small you think they might be) with others who will genuinely appreciate it.  If you need a little motivation simply go here.  Finally, you might be struggling with a part someone just announced as finished.  There email address is right there staring you in the face – begging to be used.  You might want to include where you live in the posting, so interested people near you can come gawk.

Mailing Lists
Mailing lists enjoy a kind of love/hate type relationship with the people that use them.  No one can question that they have helped the hobby with their ability to distribute information instantly.  The undisputed king of RV mailing lists is, and will no doubt continue to be, Matt Dralle’s ‘RV-List’ (http://www.matronics.com/rv-list/index.htm).  If you have joined this list you simply have to send your question to one email address (rv-list@matronics.com) to have it automatically forwarded to around a 1,000 people.  Someone with an answer or comment will surely respond.  The pro side of being on this list includes an almost instantaneous response from someone with an answer.  The con side is that you will receive many, many emails – only a small portion of which you may actually be interested in.  I’ve heard this referred to as a ‘high noise to signal ratio’.  Matt has provided a nifty alternative in that if you wish, you may get one email per day with all of the postings for the past 24 hour period in one long message.  People are sometimes scared away (or driven away) from lists like these due to the fact that you can’t usually get three people to agree on a topic, much less a thousand.  Tempers flare – yada, yada, yada.  If you’re just civil, act your age, don’t type anything you wouldn’t want your Mom to read, and don’t play lawyerball you’ll find this very useful.  Very, very useful.

Personally, I find the daily digest suites my needs the best.  I don’t post comments often, but I find this list invaluable for keeping up with RV happenings.   The ability to search through the archives of Matt’s list is also a very appreciated feature.  I use it often and recommend it.  Just don’t make your first post to this list ‘Which primer is best?’  Consider yourself warned.

Names, Places, Services and Stuff.
Several people have posted information on the web that is very helpful to us Rvators, probably none so more than Gary VanRemortel’s ‘RV Yeller Pages’ (http://www.sound.net/~hartmann/yelrpage.htm).   As a matter of fact, I started the ‘RV White Pages’ after seeing Gary’s ‘Yeller Pages’.  I thought the two would make a nice set for your virtual bookshelf.  A ‘listing of the lists’ on the World Wide Wing include:

The RV White Pages (RVWP)
I started this in ’97 as a list of RV builder/flyer phone numbers in my area (North Texas). It grew. There are now over 800 listings in 19 counties.  One interesting new feature of the RVWP is the ability to have it displayed in a format that is ‘PDA friendly’. These Pocket PC’s, as they’re known, are essentially very small computers that you can carry with you, the Compaq iPaq and Casio EM-500 being two popular versions. You can read all about these devices at http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/pocketpc/bguide/default.asp. You can load the RVWP right into one of these buggers lickity-split and take it with you everywhere.

Hospitality Overnight List
If you’re traveling around the country in your finished RV, you can browse this list and see if there is a RVator with a spare bedroom willing to let you stay the night. Personally, I’ve already drawn up one ‘dream trip’ that takes me from a Shuttle launch in Florida up the coast for the changing of the Fall colors. Free lodging buys a lot of avgas. There are some incredibly nice people associated with this hobby and I’m continually humbled by there generosity.

Transition Training
Several RV pilots are also CFI’s and are willing to offer instruction. This list is how you find them.

Articles
Written by those who know. One article concerns itself with the pros and cons of wood, metal and C/S props and was written by Martin Sutter. You might remember Martin as the guy in the old Van’s brochure sitting in a RV-6 fuselage in his living room. You have to trust a man who would turn his living room into a shop. Don Hipskind has written some on painting your plane. He operates Axis Products, Inc., a HVLP and fresh air breathing system supplier. He knows the topic. More articles are added each week or so.

Travel Stories
Words and pictures by RV people traveling in RV style to RV places. A nice place to goof off at while at work. Motivational stuff.  Larry Pardue's 'Mountain Tour 2000' is personally one of my favorites.

Plan Revisions
I started scanning the revisions as published in the Rvator and summarizing them on one web page. This keeps you from having to hunt through old issues.

Builder Modifications
A few builders have made modifications that are pretty neat – like a map box, or a way to carry fly rods in the fuse. If you have a mod, are willing to write up some text and take a picture or two, it can have a home here. 

Instant Messaging
A useful way to communicate in real-time with other RV folk who are stuck in front of a computer all day at the office. If both people have speakers and microphones on their computers they can actually talk just like on a phone (free long distance). Dallas to Australia for 6 hours – all free. Not bad.

ON A LOCAL LEVEL

The Internet is changing the RV experience on a local level also.  The RV White Pages allow you to find individuals around you with a RV in the garage.  For example, there are over a hundred projects around the Dallas/Fort Worth area that I can visit.  Nothing makes the creation of a local RV Internet presence easier than an online community.  There are several web sites offering this service, but I’ve found none simpler to work with than www.egroups.com.

Egroups Online Communities
I've been encouraging the creation of a global network of RV online communities called 'eGroups'.  You can see a listing of the groups that have been created so far at http://www.metronet.com/~dreeves/RV_egroups.htm.  Consider this quote from Van's official site:

"We encourage you to check with those who are already building or flying RVs. RV builders often band together to provide each other assistance in building and flying their aircraft. Many of these groups are highly organized, with regular meetings, newsletters, tool banks and fly-in events. Van's Aircraft has found Builders Groups to be invaluable to new builders and encourages them..." 

The whole idea behind what makes the Internet so successful is the fact that a relatively small number of people each doing a very tiny amount gives you, in the end, an incredibly large amount of useful and pertinent information for the masses to benefit from.  The problem with all this is not everyone has the skills, inclination, or time to develop web pages.  eGroups get around that problem.

What’s an ‘eGroup’?   It's a lot of things, but the short answer is it's an 'online community'.  If there are five or so RV's in your city, and those people have access to the Internet, there should be an eGroup created for that area.  Here are some benefits of a global network of local RV eGroups.

The Pictures
Most film is now developed with the option of putting them on disk.  Many people now have digital cameras.  Many others have scanners.  Just describe the picture and push the 'Upload' button.  That's what the 'Files' area of an eGroup will allow you to do.   Each group gets 20 megabytes of disk space - free.  There are picture-editing programs available for free from www.shareware.com that will allow you to cut, crop, and reduce in size images.

Example:  You go on a trip using your RV and you take a bunch of pictures (you get the Kodak disk with your pictures on it).  You can upload all the pictures you want to your local group’s eGroup so your buddies will see how glad you are you built this airplane.  When you’re done, you go to the discussion board on www.vansaircraft.net and post a message saying all the pictures you took are now online (don’t forget to include the web address of the pictures).  Now the world can enjoy them, you get all the credit.  If there’s a RV fly-in in Australia on Saturday there’s a very good possibility we can see pictures of it online Monday morning.  Did I mention all of this is free?

All the E-mail addresses (for the RV people in YOUR local area):

o        Example:  "Hey, I'm going to be in the Dallas area this weekend.  Could any of the people in the DFW RV Builders eGroup stand to have a visitor eyeballing their plane project?"  One email to dfwrvbuilders@egroups.com would do the trick.

o        Example:
Let's say you are a member of the Dallas/Fort Worth eGroup and you would like to borrow a pneumatic squeezer for the weekend instead of buying one for $500.  Send one email to dfwrvbuilders@egroups.com.

 The Shared Calendar (that everyone can add to). 

o        Example:
Things to add to your area's eGroup calendar might include:
- the date of the next pancake fly-out.
- the date and time of the next builder's meeting.
- when your finishing kit arrived.
- when you'll need help bucking rivets.

A really nice feature of the calendar is when you add an event to it, you can have it email up to two reminders to everyone on the list at whatever time interval you want (1 week before, 2 days before, 1 minute before, whatever).

 The Links
I don't know all the cool weather links for southern Australia.   If you live there, I bet you do.  You can put it in the 'Links' section and let all of the other RV types in your area know about it. 

 The Databases
The 'Database' area is where members can maintain lists of stuff:

o        Example One:
A database listing of the tools in your local area that 'members' are welcome to borrow.

o        Example Two
A database listing all of the home addresses of the members. 

 The Polling Feature
A voting feature that allows you to post a question and have people vote.  It counts the votes for you and gives you a nice bar chart. 

o        Example:
"We're all gathering at so and so's hanger this Saturday and I want to make sure we have enough soda.  Are you attending Yes/No?   Please vote.  Click HERE to see voting results so far..."

 Mobility
Since all you have to do to access your eGroup is 'Sign-in' with your username (your email address) and password, you can check your site from any computer on planet Earth that has Internet access.  You're at your uncle's 2,000 miles from home?   No problem.  By signing in, you can do anything you could do at your home computer (view all the messages that have been sent, add stuff to the calendar, add links, vote in the polls, add pictures, and post messages).  Does your uncle have a Mac (and you don't)?  Still, not a problem.  It all works just the same.

Creating an eGorup for your local area takes about ten minutes.  Go to http://www.metronet.com/~dreeves/egroups.htm for instructions on how to set one up.  Let me know the address of it when it’s up and running and I’ll add it to the list on my site.

IN CONCLUSION

All this Internet stuff works because a lot of people do a little bit for the collective good.  Everyone benefits, the information is timely, helpful, entertaining, efficiently distributed, and FREE.  When I finally finish building our family’s RV-6 one of the first places I’m going to go is to Florida to see a shuttle launch (with my daughter).  I’ll probably stay with Rick Caldwell, who I found on the ‘Hospitality Overnight’ list.  He lives right down the beach from Cape Canaveral. 

Nice people, these RVators.