I am at the stage of opening out a tooling hole in the F-725 L and R baggage area floor ribs to accept the tube of the step kit. This is part of the original build rather than a retrofit.
The plans say to open out the tooling hole to 1 ? inch (RV-9 drawing 22, at A5 on the grid). The manual disagrees. On page 8-6, it says to use a 1 5/8 inch hole saw.
The OD of the tube is 1 ? inch so the choice comes down to whether the rib is supposed to:
A) offer some support to the step tube by virtue of a contact fit with the edges of the hole through the rib or
B) stay well out of the way and simply let the tube through with a 1/16 clearance all round.
I?m leaning towards B. Which would you do?
My second question is whether steps are needed for a taildragger RV-9 at all.
I have heard it said that the RV-9A rides higher on its gear than the other models but is this true of the RV-9 also? Even if the main gear is longer, the height difference at the rear spar will only be about half as much. Would anybody care to put numbers on this by measuring the height off the ground of the top wing skin at the rear spar on their taildragger?
Another consideration is the protection of the flaps. Do the steps make it less likely that your flaps will get stood on? I think they would.
Let's not discuss drag/speed. Unlike the above, I found plenty of material debating that issue and it seems the difference is slight.
The plans say to open out the tooling hole to 1 ? inch (RV-9 drawing 22, at A5 on the grid). The manual disagrees. On page 8-6, it says to use a 1 5/8 inch hole saw.
The OD of the tube is 1 ? inch so the choice comes down to whether the rib is supposed to:
A) offer some support to the step tube by virtue of a contact fit with the edges of the hole through the rib or
B) stay well out of the way and simply let the tube through with a 1/16 clearance all round.
I?m leaning towards B. Which would you do?
My second question is whether steps are needed for a taildragger RV-9 at all.
I have heard it said that the RV-9A rides higher on its gear than the other models but is this true of the RV-9 also? Even if the main gear is longer, the height difference at the rear spar will only be about half as much. Would anybody care to put numbers on this by measuring the height off the ground of the top wing skin at the rear spar on their taildragger?
Another consideration is the protection of the flaps. Do the steps make it less likely that your flaps will get stood on? I think they would.
Let's not discuss drag/speed. Unlike the above, I found plenty of material debating that issue and it seems the difference is slight.