Scott,
You are welcome to join us.
Gill,
In order to get any hands on flying in your ship, your airplane will need full functioning dual controls (dual sticks, rudders and a non vernier throttle the safety pilot can use). If your airplane does not meet these requirements, we still welcome you to come along for a ride with us, learn about proceedures, and discussions will probably reveal some accommodation we can make for future flying.
The subject of RV-9's comes up somewhat frequently, so some notes are in order. Although the 9 is a fine aircraft, it is not the ideal airplane to fly in a formation with RV-4, 6, 7 and 8's. RV-9's in formation together work great. Although you can learn to fly formation with the other RV's (Scott is a great example of this), it would be better to use one of the other two seat RV's, or fly with other RV-9's.
As far as certifications or endorsements, for fun formation flying, none are required. However, FAR's do require all pilots in the formation to be briefed on the proceedures to be used for any individual formation flight, and you can expect to see some fairly intensive pre-flight briefings, as well as post-flight debriefs. We don't take formation flying lightly, so no one gets to fly solo in our formations without demonstrating a certain level of competency.
To fly formation in an airshow, special pilot endorsements are required.
Let us know if you have any other questions,
Pat (Glider)