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Shortened main gear legs on a 9A?

B

bbowlsbey

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Has anyone ever heard of a builder lowering the 9A, (or 6A/7A), for less ground clearance?

I am looking at purchasing a 9A, and may need to work some change to lower the trailing edge of the wing as it sits on the ground. This would enable my wife, (who uses a wheelchair), to sit on the wing root with a foot on the ground, disassemble the wheel chair and place the pieces of the chair into the cargo area of the aircraft. (Thinking about the "tip up slider" canopy to make this easier for her as well.) Climbing in is no problem for her.

I realize shortening the nose gear to much, (or possibly at all), would cause a problem with ground clearance for the prop, (though we dont fly from grass very much anyway). Not sure what engineering, or operating difficulties such a change might cause. I assume you wouldnt want the airplane to have more of a "nose up" attitude on it's gear than in the flare.

Has anyone else done this?
 
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Hard to imagine modifying the existing gear legs. This might (big might) work if you got some completely new gear legs made. And of course you would want to have a new nosegear leg as well..... Any chance you could build a step or some other accessory? I suspect that you have already thought about this quite a bit. Another possible option would be to convert to a taildragger.....

greg
 
I think it would have to be a set of custom gear legs, (I am thinking that would cost aprox $1k - $1.5k for the mains, based on some of the sites on the web).

The taildrager might not work so well; my wife is a pilot as well and is flying with one prosthetic leg. (She alternates on the pedals as necessary in the Cherokees we currently fly.) I have never flown a taildrager, but I assume a bit more quick rudder work is required to keep from ground looping. (Of course we might be able to do aerobatic stirrups on the one leg so she could push and pull on that one pedal, but pushing with the prosthetic is much more secure than pulling. There are some unknown unknowns with the stirrup.)

I have thought about modifying the step on one side to be more like a perch to sit on that would extend straight out of the fuse about 10". I am not sure of the height above the ground for the step mounting plate though; dont know if she could perch there. I am also not sure about flap clearance for such an arrangement.
 
Flaps would clear ok, but I would worry about the lever arm on a step sticking that far out. Note that there have been some stress issues with the steps and cracking.

Unfortunately, I think that the push-pull rudder business won't work either, given the way the rudder pedals are set up, so I agree that perhaps the nosedragger configuration would be easier for her to fly.

Best of luck.

cheers,
greg
 
Is this to facilitate her getting in and out, or to allow here to get in/out and fly?
If just getting in/out, then what you need is the tail dragger RV-9.
There is no practical way to lower the airplane enough to help.
The RV-6A wing trailing edge sits lower than the 9 but even it is not quite low enough. Carl Haye who custom built and flys an RV-6 (no use of both legs) once tried getting in and out of my RV-6A when someone else was interested in buying it. He had a difficult time compared to his RV-6.
My point, with a lot of effort and money it could be possible to make an RV-9A have the same ground stance as an RV-6A but that would still be too high.

From what I have witnessed watching Carl in the past, I think the tail dragger would be doable.
 
It's really about loading the wheelchair. She can get in and fly as it is, but being able to load the wheelchair on a day when I am not with her is the difficult part.
 
The other issue you will have with lowering the -9A is striking the tail when in the landing flair.

In all, this doesn't really sound like a workable solution.

Get a -9, you won't be sorry.

Better yet, don't get an RV. (Sorry gang.)

A high wing is a much better solution. Check out the Highlander story in the February issue of KitPlanes. There is a side-bar about a father who made a light weight hoist to lift his son out of his wheel chair and into their plane. The hoist can then be disassembled and placed in the back of the plane along with the wheelchair.

Unfortunately Van's doesn't make a high wing (yet), so your options are limited.
 
bbowlsbey said:
(She alternates on the pedals as necessary in the Cherokees we currently fly.) I have never flown a taildrager, but I assume a bit more quick rudder work is required to keep from ground looping. (Of course we might be able to do aerobatic stirrups on the one leg so she could push and pull on that one pedal, but pushing with the prosthetic is much more secure than pulling. There are some unknown unknowns with the stirrup.)
Click to expand...

The pushing part yes, the pulling part in the RV9/A rudder pedal setup will not work.
 
If you fly from and land at the same airport

Would it be easier to build a sort of moving/folding mechanism? Something like foldable stairs or ramp on wheels? To fold over the wings. After the passenger gets in pilot dismantles the structure and put in the hangar. After landing the same trick reversed.
 
Interesting...

Maybe the simplest solution is an 8" high step stored on the wheelchair. That should be high enough to let her rest the one prosthetic on to stabilize while she lifts the wheelchair pieces into the cargo area.

Simple sounds good.
 
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