Four Bravo Lima goes to Kansas

[ChiefPilot]

As mentioned in a post last week, I flew in the primary category at an IAC contest in my RV-6A. It was both a new and familiar experience; new because I was actually flying in the contest but familiar since I've been plugged into a local IAC chapter and have helped with some of the stuff that goes into setting up a contest.

Leaving on Friday, I flew in the contest on Saturday and Sunday then returned home on Sunday afternoon. While it took me three days, you can watch the whole thing here in only about a minute and 45 seconds (click on the picture or go to https://youtu.be/2DNrFKTuOcA).

As Ron Schreck has mentioned, the RV has some unique characteristics for participating in these events. While an RV will never match an Extra/Panzl/etc. for pure aerobatic performance, they are pretty comfortable machines to travel in and can deal with weather/approaches/etc. better than the typical aerobatic mount yet still be competitive in the primary and sportsman categories.

Lots of questions about RVs in general from other contest goers; most knew what an RV was but they're not super common at contests (yet - Ron is working on that). I didn't hear a single negative thing about RVs and lots of positive things (sans the nosewheel comments of course but those aren't RV-specific ) Genuine interest in the cross country capability of the machine though - I heard comments about how comfortable the interior looked, how much baggage space it had, and how complete the panel was.

The only consideration is that the canopy must be jettisonable. Easy enough with a slider, but side-by-side models with a tip-up canopy will likely be disqualified if the tip-up mechanism was omitted during construction. Lots of great discussion around whether you could actually get out or not can be found in the archives and isn't worth discussing here, but be aware of the issue before committing the time and money to travel to a contest. On the other hand, if you are only interested in local chapter events excluding sanctioned contests, it may not be an issue - check with your local chapter.

The last thing I'll say about the contest is there are some interesting folks to meet. I was recording scores for a judge whos name seemed somewhat familiar, and in talking to him I confirmed that he was actually a confirmed Mig killer, downing a Mig 17 from an F-4 in 1967.