My 9 - An Update

[bsacks05]

I just installed the wheel pants and fairings. Still have the lower intersection fairings to install. I was curious about the speed with these on so I took it up to 3500 msl, full throttle, straight and level, watched the GPS ground speed climb to.....173kts! Airspeed showed 180mph. I like it.
Power is carbed O320, fixed pitch Sterba prop, one mag, one Lightspeed 2+. Empty weight was 1021. I forgot to do a run in the opposite direction to get an average but was pleased with what I saw. With the lower fairings on and a metal prop the speed would likely increase. I have no plans to change my prop, however.
Anyway, I love my RV9! Cruising through the middle Georgia skies listening to the Allman Brothers on the X/M, how can it get any better? I can even carry a drink with me.

 

[aadamson]

Sounds like a nice airplane. You'll probably need to do a three way run at least to get accurate speeds... BTW, it's really hard to know your true speeds without at least 3 runs and use of one of the online calculators. For example. If those numbers and units were correct....173kts GS with 180mph IAS, would have been 150kts IAS. We'd need OAT to convert that to TAS and then we'd know how much of the 173 was influenced by wind, etc

Sounds like a nice ride... prolly burning little fuel ...

Good luck and have fun, share your speeds when done, I'm sure others will appreciate knowing.