This past Saturday, Pete McCoy graciously treated me to a flight in his beautiful RV-9A based out of Chino. There was a bit of delay as he was flying down from Big Bear, which was socked in until about noon. No worries; I had my second breakfast at Flo's, a very pleasant way to kill some time, and afterward watched a P-40 do some low, thundering passes and steep turns. Gotta love Chino!
Pete arrived, and I saddled up right-seat for my first-ever RV flight. I was pleasantly surprised with the seating position, canopy clearance to my head and clearance between my legs and the bottom of the panel. When closing the slider, I had to duck a little bit, but once fully forward and latched, there was plenty of room. I'm about 6'2", 205 lb., so I knew it could potentially be tight, but it felt at least as roomy as my Diamond DA-20 trainer. Phew…relief! Pete has great ANR headsets, so minimal engine noise and crystal-clear communication.
Pete is very kind to the nose gear with a short-field takeoff technique, popping a wheelie in what seemed like 50 feet after throttle up. I was amazed at how quickly we became airborne. He had maybe half (?) the flaps in, but we’re two pretty big guys, the tanks were nearly full and the OAT was in the 80s. This bird just wants to fly!
We flew northeast, out of the basin haze, up over the San Gabriel mountains, past Lake Arrowhead and into the high desert over the Lucerne Valley, and Pete let me take the stick at about 8500’ altitude. Very niiiice! Just as promised, it’s a real fingertip-control airplane…seems like an inch of lateral deflection gets you 45 degrees of bank (maybe slight exaggeration). But very confidence-inspiring and in no way twitchy, even in the sun-baked choppy desert air of early afternoon. Though autopilot servo may have been adding some extra resistance, I really like the firmness of the control feel. Another worry of mine was that control efforts would be too light, but they’re ideal for me.
Another thing….engine/prop vibration levels were lower than either the DA-20 or Cessna 172s I’ve flown, and very little shake on startup/shutdown too. I think I’m sold on composite props!
We did some gentle standard-rate turns, and Pete pointed me toward the dry lakebed that’s the “back way” into Big Bear and let me get a feel for descent. After announcing our position and identifying other traffic coming in, Pete entered on the downwind for right traffic on Runway 8. We had some pretty good crosswind gusts, and Pete made a great rudder correction just a few feet before touchdown.
We taxied back and took off again, turning southeast a little earlier than anticipated to steer clear of local traffic, and then down the mountain into the haze blanket once again. We had flight following, and as we neared Chino, we were still being held at 3500’. Finally, the clearance came to descend, and with it a lesson in slowing the RV-9A down, pulling power and feeding in back-stick to bleed off airspeed. Pete came in over the numbers and greased it on the landing.
I’m pretty motivated to work on my RV-9A already, but this generous demo flight injected some new enthusiasm! A huge thanks, Pete, and yes, I’ll pay it forward to some future RV builder when my plane is up and flying.
P.S. At lunch, the iPhone indicated a call coming in from Aurora, OR. Sure enough, it was Van's, and my QB fuse is in and being crated as we speak. Yeah!
Flyin' with Pete?RV perma-grin in place!
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