F This is the right side crotch strap anchor.  Although the -9 is not aerobatic I strongly believe in the use of crotch straps when utilizing a mutipoint harness, such as will be installed in this plane.  The crotch or anti-submarine strap prevents the lap belt from riding up above your hip bones in an accident and damaging your internal organs.  (8/30/05)

E When fitting the heater cover you have to drill four holes through the aluminum angles on the floor.  This would have been much easier to do had the instructions mentioned it before now but they didn't so I had to figure out how to measure and mark them.  I started by marking the correct lateral location on the heater cover.  Then I took a small piece of AA and measured down to the appropriate depth and drilled a #30 hole in the side.  (Ok two holes but only the lower hole was used to drill the AA on the floor.)  I then taped the AA in the correct location, held it in place, and drilled the hole.  After all four holes were drilled with the #30 bit I enlarged them with a #11 bit.  Without the angle drive I don't think it is possible to drill these holes.  Upon removing the heater cover the holes were perfectly centered on the web.  (8/31/05)

F There sure are a lot of small parts that go in the forward fuselage floor section.  Here is just a small sample of some of them ready for painting.  (9/4/05)

E The control sticks are installed.  Next up is the wing installation.  (9/16/05)

F Match drilled the horizontal stabilizer to the fuselage.  This was a straightforward processes.  Checkout the tip on my the Things to Consider page regarding how to accurately measure the HS and wings.   (9/25/05)

E Here is the Andair fuel valve fitted to the cover plate.  This is one quality valve that every builder should consider.  (9/25/05)

F Installed both wings for the first time.  After installing the right wing we noticed there was a slight interference with aft spar bracket and the wing.  After looking at the RV-9 plans (I'm thinking the -7 does not have this issue.) we noticed that the aft spar bracket should have had a slight angle filed in the end to allow for the significant dihedral in the -9's wing.   (10/2/05)

E Tad Sargent is waxing the left wing spar stub with BoLube so it will slide right in to place.  We also waxed the pins we used to temporarily hold the wings in place.   (10/2/05)

F Here I'm marking the aft spar stub for edge clearance before inserting into the fuselage.  (10/2/05)

E Tad, Radomir Zaric, and myself are installing the left wing.  It doesn't take long to install the wings.  What will take some time is lining wthing up in preparation for drilling the hole in the aft spar.  Once that is completed the flaps, ailerons, wing tips, pitot tube, wiring, and wing tips will all need to be installed before removing and storing the wings until final assembly at the airport.  Much thanks go out to Tad (RV-7A builder and almost flier), Radomir (RV-7A builder) for their help, and to Andy Moscarelli, Tech Adviser and RV-6A flier, who proved moral support via the telephone and email.

The wings slide right in and very little adjustment will be needed before drilling the aft spar.  Tad recommended I wait a day for everything to settle down before drilling the aft spar and I agree with him.  Tomorrow I will verify that everything is level and the wings are in the correct place before I drill them to the fuselage.  Based on the preliminary measurements we made this morning, the wings lined up perfectly.  Thanks Van's for such a great kit!  (10/2/05)

F Here it is with the wings on for the first time!  (10/2/05)

E The day after we installed the wings I stopped by the ABF freight terminal and picked up the finishing kit.  That is the largest box of all and yes, it will fill the bed of a standard size pickup.  (10/3/05)

F Here is the good Doctor helping me inventory the kit.  Big box, short list.  The inventory list for the finishing kit is only three pages long so it went quickly.  After moving all the parts down into the basement I will need to break down the big crate so she can get her trucklet back in the garage.  (10/4/05)

E After installing the wings on Sunday I waited until Friday night to drill the aft spar.  Yes, it took me that long to get up the nerve.  Before drilling yours, go to the FAQ page on Van's web site and get the directions posted there.  They are much better than the instructions included in the manual.  Nora helped square up the wing and everything came out just perfect.  The Smart Level was reading zeros all the way around and the wings were square so it was time to hold my breath and start drilling.  I used a small block of oak with a perpendicular hole drilled in it as a drill guide.  Of course this only worked after measuring for proper edge distance, punching the bracket, and starting the hole free hand.  The starter hole allowed me to put the block in the correct place with the drill bit sticking out just a little bit.  (10/7/05)

F Saturday was spent bending and fitting the fuel tank brackets, sorry no pictures.  The brackets are thick and it took a lot of persuasion with a 10 lb sludge hammer and 2x4 to bend them to the proper angle.  Sunday found me back under the fuselage cutting holes for the flap actuators and installing the flaps.  For some reason I never installed the small bushings in the flap brackets located on the wings.  To install them I used a large C-clamp with the faces covered in duct tape.  The foot of the clamp  was covered with about 10 layers of duct tape and the screw side only had one layer.  The one layer of tape on the screw sized was to keep from scratching the parts, the foot had multiple layers to allow the the bearing to push past the side of the bracket just a little bit as they are thicker than the bracket and should "stand proud" of both surfaces.  The extra tape allowed this to happen.  (10/8/05)

E Installing the flaps was straightforward.  The only real issue is cutting the hole in the side of the fuselage to allow the flap actuator push rode bearing end to retract all the way into the fuselage.  Here is how my hole came out.  Your mileage may very.  This is definitely a file a little, test fit, file a little, test fit it exercise.  (10/8/05)

F Installing both ailerons with Nora's help.  Had to dig out the wing drawings to do this so keep those things handy.  Nora sat in the cockpit and made airplane noises while I was flat on my back under the wing adjusting the push tubes.  (10/11/05)

E The HS is now installed.  This was an easy task and setting the incidence isn't a big deal according to Van's.  However, I wanted to make sure it was perfect so I used this little bit of wedge to raise the back of the HS to the proper position.  Installing two long drill bits in the tooling holes of the inboard ribs allowed me to measure from the deck to the bottom of the drill bit, thus assuring the incidence was set correctly.  (10/22/05)

F In case you were wondering, a completed RV-9 can fit in a basement with room to walk around.  Well sort of walk around, I do have to duck under the HS.  The sticks are in and the ailerons and elevator are now functional.  I did not run the trim cable through the HS and attach it to the trim tab as it might make disassembly the plane difficult and I do have to get this thing out of my basement at some point.  The next task will be to drill the VS and install the rudder.  (10/26/05)

E Now that the wings are on I'm spending time hooking everything up to them so they can be removed and put in storage so I will have room to work on the aircraft systems.  Here is a picture of me installing the vent line for the right fuel tank.  Since this picture was taken the left vent and fuel lines have been installed.  I buggered up the right fuel line and am waiting for replacement tubing to arrive so I can finish the right fuel line.  Although the lines go through the side of fuselage there is no room to flair them with the wing on so my plan is to mark the lines with the wing on so I will know where to cut them.  After the wing is removed, the fuel and vent lines will be cut to length and flared.  It should be noted that at the end of each working session I put some tape over the open fuel (and pitot and static lines) to keep bugs out during construction.  (11/15/05)

F As Larry Turner and I sate down for lunch on November 25th the door bell rang.  As leapt from my chair to see what was the matter, when what did my wondering eyes did appear but US Postman with an enormous box.  Actually, it wasn't that large but it did contain my Catto prop and it was a thing of beauty.  I can't wait to fly behind this thing.  After opening it and realizing I didn't have a place to put it and knowing Larry and I had to leave ASAP I took the prop up to the bedroom and tucked in bed thinking Nora would find it there before I returned.  (11/25/05)

E One of the major issues the RV-7A's have is a propensity towards being tail heavy.  Since I'm using a lighter engine in my -9 I have made every effort to keep all my gear in the center of the airplane.  On 8/9/05 I posted that I installed the ELT on the right side, under the baggage compartment floor.  When it came time to mount the strobe power supply I did the same thing, I mounted it under the left side of the baggage compartment floor.  Both the ELT and strobe power supply doors were made from a trashed wing tank skin I had laying around, just don't ask why I had it laying around.  Some builders have attached the baggage floor with plate nuts.  Although I like this idea, that does add weight and my goal is get my -9's empty weight as close to 1,000 lbs as I can.  (11/27/05)

F The Dynon D100 EFIS that will reside in the middle of N941WR's instrument panel requires a remote compass.  Although it is a small unit, it needs to be mounted away from any ferrous metal.  Including some that you might put in the baggage compartment.  My solution was to mount close the top of the aircraft at the 2nd bulkhead behind the baggage compartment.  The picture shows the mounting tray I fabricated to hold it.  (1/21/06)

E I've been busy preparing for riveting the top skins on so I can get to the roll bar and eventually the canopy.  Before those skins get riveted in place I want get everything finished and cleaned up in the tail cone.  This included securing the tail light wires to the floor, making the bracket to hold the Dynon remote compass, and routing the wires for that compass.  The compass bracket will have a short section of "J" channel that will brace to the rib and keep it from moving.  (2/11/06)

F After searching high and low for 8-32 screws with a "wing nut" head that flips over flat and failing, I finally settled on these screws from the aviation section at Lowes.  If any readers of this web site can locate screws with heads that fold flat please let me know where I can find them.  (2/16/06)

E It took close to three hours, most of it doing the final fitting and bending the bulkhead flanges to the right angle, cutting a board to fit in the tail cone, and stuffing my big 'ol butt in such a small space but it was worth it the effort.  The upper aft tail cone skin is now riveted in place.  Much thanks to Radomir for his help driving those rivets.  (2/26/06)

F Building the tip-up roll bar is a bit of a chore.  There are 176 rivets in the thing and 160 of those must be countersunk.  To top it off, the thing can pull together on you if you are not careful.  I jigged mine so it wouldn't move and after I pulled it out of the jig it still moved together an 1/8 of an inch.  Turns out it fit perfect, which makes me wonder if Vans took this into account when they designed it.  In the third picture the roll bar is just sitting in place, next up is drilling it to the fuselage.  (3/7/06)

E Somewhere the instructions tell you to support the fuel line between the fuel selector valve and the fuel pump with foam.  I had thought long and hard about this and came up with the idea of using self expanding insulation foam that comes in a can.  I built a simple two piece mold that would fit around the fuel line and clamp together with two clecos.  The height of the mold was the same as the inside height of the tunnel cover.  Once in place I filled it with "Great Stuff" self expanding foam.  I cut the top off with a hacksaw blade after the foam hardened and removed the mold.  This process was repeated three times and the foam blocks seem to do a great job of holding the fuel line in place.  After the first block (blob?) hardened, I took the top I cut off and dumped gas over the top of it to see if it would melt like Styrofoam.  That was not the case, your mileage may very.  Either way, I don't expect to have fuel in my floorboards.  (3/13/06)

F The drawings depict four small steel bands that are used to tie the rudder peddles to the rudder cables.  The bands are .050 thick, 1/2" wide and length unknown.  You are to make them whatever length works for you and your rudder location.  Before cutting the four steel parts I made two aluminum ones and tried on the rudder peddles for size.  My sample pieces were made exactly the same length as the full size drawing depicted and they worked out just fine.  In the center position the peddles are slightly forward.  At full deflection, left or right, they do not hit the firewall and the rudder cable moves freely.  Left to right the pictures are: looking straight down on the peddles, (4/19/06)

E Busy day.  Cut and installed the right canopy release pin, tube, and release mechanism.  The "normal" installation on a tip-up canopy is to run the emergency canopy release handle aft and have it stick through the instrument panel.  Since the RV-9 is not acrobatic the chances of me flying with a parachute and needing to exit the plane in a hurry is very unlikely.  Thus, I elected to install the "T" handle vertically behind the forward sub-panel.  To release the canopy for maintenance, it will be necessary to reach under the panel and twist the handle.  The first picture is of the "T" handle.  The "T" part is the white bar at the very bottom of the picture.  The second picture shows the right pin in the retracted position.  (The left pin is not installed in this picture.)  (4/23/06)

F Here are some pictures of the parking brake routing.  The parking brake handle is in the left side of the instrument panel, above the longeron.  In the first picture it can be identified by the the brass tube protruding horizontally from right to left and transitions to a silver cable.  The second picture illustrates the aluminum angle and adel clamp used to hold the cable sheathing in place above the parking parking brake.  The parking bake is the black box with the red caps protruding from it.  All that is left is to connect the cable to the brake and run the remaining brake lines.  The cap screw that secures the left side of the aluminum angle will also support the fuel vent line.  (4/23/06)

E Sometimes you just have to work on your "Honey Do" list when building an airplane.  My list included adding a cloths hanger for my wife.  Let's face it, we hope to use the -9 to take some trips and it would be nice if our clothes made it without looking like they were left in the dryer for a week.  When finished I simply riveted it to the support above the baggage compartment.  Remember, this plane will have the tip-up canopy, sliders do not have this support.  The aluminum angle was some scrap I had laying around and the carabineer was found at the local hardware store for $1.00.  Total weight gain was a few ounces.   (4/25/06)

F It took about an hour to cut the second pull tube for the canopy release.  This pictures show the completed release installed in both the open and closed position.  Note the adel clamp at the bottom of the "T" handle to keep it from moving.   (4/25/06)

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