First Flight Sunday July 24th!

Mickey with the RV Grin

Mickey's bird came in at 1074# the low end of expected weight, and the empty CG at 79.0 inches, the same value as in the examples in the builders manual for RV9

I have made a page with a few photos Micky has provided

Mickeys RV9 as it emerges from his basment workshop.

A painting tip from Mickey
Paint it yourself!(with the help of a friend)

Look it is a taildraging RV9

The tail of of Mickey's RV9

     Mickey is not using fiberglass around his windshield
Mickey says "Note the metal fairings I made to retain the windsheild. I didn`t like the idea of having to replace the windsheild in the future with the design the Vans folks use - epoxy bonding in place with fiberglass.I had to make a similar fairing on the HummelBird and it`s fairly easy to do - just takes patience and persistence. I had to develop the final pattern shape after three attempts. You make the fairing from the pattern and it distorts during the forming process --- then you make another pattern, anticipating the direction of the distortion from the first. It took me three iterations before it`s right, but it looks good as you can see. The forming is done with a slot in the end of a piece of oak wood and distorting it by hand as you pull the fairing through the slot lengthwise - it`s the way the old timers did it. The material is 1100H13 x .032."

     Mickey is building a RV9, which is not a 9A but a 9.
That means that it is a conventional gear aircraft with the little wheel in the back. The conventional gear is cheaper to build, and may be a bit lighter.

     The view of the gear can be seen in the above photo. Compare that to the gear that I am building.

     Micky says "The engine is an 0320 that was in a friends basement for 35 years - bought from a blow over accident. An AI friend of mine & I resurrected it and now has 235 hours since new with new thisses and thats. 150 HP should make a going machine out of my RV if the advertising is true."

     Mickey believes in keeping his RV light. See the simple panel, the electronic gauge is for the capacitance fuel gauge.

Mickey also sent me a photo of his airbox.

Mickey is my hero, the RV9 is the fourth plane that he has built, after a Fisher 101, a Nieuport 11 replica and a Hummelbird,
Mickey also has a Stinson so the RV will be his 5th plane? He has a plane for every mission!