Why an RV-9A?

The first rule of writing is know your audience. Since anyone can click on a website, I'm guessing most folks reading this are either related to me or you're debating between building the RV-9 and some other airplane - probably the RV-7.

The simple answer to why the 9 is because it fits the missions we fly and our skill level. We both have just over 200 hours as PIC and we fly about 75 hours per year. Deciding on side-by-side seating and a nose wheel was easy for us. Both choices are a matter of preference and ego. I look at the tricycle gear not as a sissy wheel but as a natural evolution in airplane design. Insurance companies confirm the added safety and 5 minutes taxiing a tail-dragger will show anyone what they need to know about visibility out of a tail-dragger. I know real men fly tail-draggers. Perhaps when I need to start taking Viagra I'll feel the need to prove my manhood with a little wheel on the backend. In terms of mission, most of the longer flights Shirley and I take are to visit friends and relatives. For short hops we go out for the proverbial $100 hamburger, the occasional pancake breakfast and when we can we like to just go up for an hour after work. Occasionally we enjoy flying Young Eagles.

The RV-9 can do all of these things. A four place aircraft could take up more young eagles but that's a compromise we can easily live with. There are two other minor compromises we made. The first is aerobatics and the second is speed. The RV-7 is about 10 mph faster than the RV-9 and the 9 is not intended for aerobatic us while the 7 can do "gentleman" aerobatics. Let's look at these compromises.

Frankly, neither of us are particularly hell bent on flying inverted or doing loops, rolls, or spins...although every now and again I do get the urge. When I do get the urge to go inverted or try a few spins, John Greenwood has a Pitts a few hangers down from us and he is a consummate aerobatic pilot. He's not inclined to the occasional roll or "gentleman" aerobatic maneuver, he tastes run to full-fledge aerobatics done with great precision. In the great scheme of things, giving up aerobatics is a small concession.

So what about speed? The RV-9 isn't as fast as the RV-7 and for a cross country machine this might seem important. In our case the longest trip most years is about 800 mile from Virginia to Missouri. You can do the math for yourself but here's what I discovered. At 75% cruise at gross weight the 200 hp RV-7 will do 197 mph and the 160 hp RV-9 will do 186 mph. For our big trip this mean the RV-7 will take 4 hours and 4 minutes. The slow RV-9 will do the same trip in 4 hours and 18 minutes. That's less than 15 minutes difference to cross one-third of the country!

Compromise involves give and take. So what do we get for giving up 42 minutes in speed to cross the US and not being able to do aerobatics? For starters we get a airplane that's docile, yet sporty to fly, lands slower and is more economical. I would expect the 160 hp RV-9 to burn between 2 and 2.5 gallons per hour less fuel than the 200 hp RV-7. At 150 hours of flying per year that amounts to about 10 free fill ups for the 9 for the same time spent flying when compared to the RV-7. According to Tom Green, Van's General Manager, the RV-9 also provides the best IFR platform of any of the Van's designs (though I wonder if the RV-10 might not take this honor when it's available).

The differences are not huge but consistently the scales tipped toward the RV-9A for the kind of flying we like to do. It would be hard to make a seriously bad selection from among the available choices Van's offers. I'll admit I sweated over making the decision so don't feel alone if you're struggling. I flip-flopped more than KX-155 entering Class B airspace but I kept coming back to the 9 as the right choice. So far I've not regretted it.

Don

ps. As an afterthought to the decision, if someone else who reads this was also struggling between the 9 and the 7 and decides on the 7, I'd like to make you an offer. After we both have a year of experience flying our respective planes, I'd like to trade-off for a couple of hours and see what we think.