Complete standard kit, in this case for a 7A.
A nicely done example, panels are highly individual.
Definitely a nice paint job - this belongs to a guy in England.
The bird I'm building...
I was led into this choice of aircraft over a couple of years of looking, dreaming, scheming, and talking to builders of a quite a variety of airplanes. I love the look of some of the canard pushers, but have never been comfortable with the idea of a fiberglass or carbonfiber airplane. Sure they are lightweight and strong, but they can also be very difficult to layup properly (especially for someone not used to working with those materials) and they are not even close to fire resistant. An all-aluminum airplane is extremely predictable from the materials performance standpoint - any builder can a take a part of a certain material, a certain thickness, at a certain temper, and it will perform identically everytime. There is no guesswork about whether or not you layed up the glass/epoxy correctly, the fiber orientation is good, the mix was good, it completely cured, etc etc. Sure, it can be done correctly - the question is whether it can be done correctly BY ME with my limited glasswork knowledge. I preferred to work with a material I know quite well, which limited me to all-metal aircraft.
After spending the majority of my time in spam-cans ("sluggers" in the words of Doug Reeves), I have found myself ready to kill everytime I point the nose into the wind and fight for every knot of groundspeed I can get. I'm paying $100/hr for this noise? And burning how much fuel? I wanted my own airplane so bad I could taste it, but when I started adding up the costs associated with that route it made my eyes roll back in my head. In the first place, I WANTED (really, really badly) an airplane with empty Mooney cold-day climb performance and T210 cruise speeds and altitudes, on a 152's fuel budget, with a kick-ass head-turning STOL ground run. Of course, I also wanted a dollar bill and the right six numbers, but you know what they say about wishes and fishes...
So to come even remotely close to the kind of numbers I wanted in an airplane, it was quickly becoming obvious that I was going to spend a liver and a kidney, and end up with something along the lines of a Mooney Ovation - and then I'm stuck selling my spleen to buy fuel. Let's not even worry about insurance and maintenance costs, I'm already dead, twitching on the floor. Dream's over. Insert SERIOUS coin to continue.
This was about the time that I got turned onto experimentals - initially simply from the performance aspect. I had no idea about all the cost savings available by doing it yourself, I was just in typical engineering gearhead heaven looking at well-made, custom-built high performance aircraft with few compromises sucking the life out of the airplane. I was looking at the Lancair Legacy pretty hard, the Velocitys for a long time (still love that canard design...), and a few others. Most of the builders I was talking to had good things to say about the Van's kits, and being an all-metal aircraft made good sense to me - it's easy to engineer it correctly, no guesswork on the materials, and easily tooled. The prices for the kits were quite reasonable, at about $30k for the entire airframe, plus engine and avionics. It would be quite easy to build a $60k VFR only aircraft, and a nice IFR unit could be had for $70k with no problem. The performance numbers were quite good, even astounding when you consider the fuel burn. In fact, looking at the weight, speed, and power in comparison to something like the Cirrus, I gotta wonder where the hell is all the fuel going??? It just should not take that much 100LL to push an airplane that small that fast! There are some serious aerodynamic compromises made on today's production aircraft in the name of marketing and liability - compromises that I'm not willing to settle for.
So I started looking pretty hard at the Van's aircraft series - there were at this time over 4000 flying, and they weren't falling out of the sky all the time either, which is a testament both to the pilots flying them as well as the design itself. They have excellent performance, being fully aerobatic with the exception of the 9 and 10 (which had just been released at the time I got interested in the Vans line). Nice short takeoff rolls, good stall speeds, excellent climb rates and cruise speeds, and somewhere or another they left out a whole BUNCH of drag, 'cuz all this was happening on a relatively small engine, giving very respectable fuel flows at full cruise speeds bumping against 200 mph. So lessee here - 2 seats or 4, tandem or side-by-side, nosegear or taildragger? Slider or tip-up? The age-old questions were addressed one by one, and I ended up deciding the 9A would probably be the best bird for my type of flying, with a slider canopy because I live in Texas and I want to be able to taxi with the canopy open to avoid the greenhouse effect in the cockpit. The 9A is adaptable to a wide variety of engines, from 118 to 160 horsepower - but several builders have installed a 180 horsepower engine for enhanced climb rate and high-altitude cruise, mostly for high-density altitude operations.
The idea of the larger engine, though officially taboo according to Vans, was appealling to me for several reasons other than the typical hairy-chest-beating musclehead trying to imitate Tim Allen on his tool show. The engine weight difference is only about 17 pounds, the airframe and engine mounts can handle the increased weight and torque with no issues. Cooling air flow needs to have some attention, but is easily done. The biggest taboo reason given for not exceeding the "official" 160 hp is the ability to more easily exceed Vne for the aircraft - the engineering speed limit. You still cannot exceed Vne in straight and level flight with the 180 hp engine, but it's much easier to do so in a shallow dive than with the 160. This is strictly a pilot issue - not a mechanical one. As long as the pilot flies the aircraft within it's limitations, a 600hp engine (assuming you could get it to fit and fly) is not too much power. The pilot simply has to be in full command of the safe operation of the aircraft - which includes how much power to use at any given point in the flight. My particular typical flight is going to include a lot of long cross-country at high altitude - and the extra power helps with high climb rate to get up there quickly, and keeps a little excess power available as dropping atmospheric pressure robs precious inches from my manifold gauge at cruise altitudes in the low teens. I'll also be crossing the Rockies frequently - and as I've already had one nasty experience with mountain flying in an underpowered airplane, I fully intend to have enough horsepower to extricate my puckered tail from another such situation in a slightly more graceful manner.
I had made the decision early on to run a constant-speed prop, so worrying about what pitch to pick and dealing with RPM restrictions would not be an issue. There is a (very) slight efficiency gain from frictional pumping losses in the larger O360 engine versus the O320, and the price differential between the two is less than 5% for new engines for an available power increase of 12.5%. For any given power output (say I wanted to cruise at 8500 feet and 150 knots, using 125hp), only a certain amount of horsepower is needed - and fuel burn is directly related to horsepower produced, not engine size. My fuel burn would be identical (within instrument error) no matter which engine I was running, though one would be running closer to full power than the other one under those conditions. This has the added benefit of being able to run your high-dollar powerplant at a lower percentage of power output for most of it's life, which will push your TBO out a fair bit.
The kits are fairly complete - coming with almost everything you need to build it except engine, instruments, and tools. Typical build times vary from about 1200 to just over 2000 hours, depending on model and experience. There is a vast network of experienced builders talking to each other and sharing tips, hints, and tricks - something I have not seen with any other manufacturer of kitplanes, at least not to this degree. So the decision was made, the 9A it will be. I'll put an IO360 Lycoming clone in it (fuel injected, normally aspirated) with forward facing cold air induction and electronic ignition. I'll be running a hard IFR glass panel with full engine monitoring for LOP XC trips, with XM weather on board, and two-axis autopilot (a must for any kind of decent IFR flying). I'll probably use the Superior Air Parts XPIO360 engine with 8.5:1 compression ratio pistons, since that engine allows me to operate on 91 octane auto fuel - representing a significant cost savings over the lifetime of the engine.
I'll also be modifying the fuel system considerably from the factory plan. Vans original design has the fuel stored in the two inboard leading edge halves of the wings, with the outboard leading edge being empty structure. Many builders have expressed the desire for more fuel tank volume, and a few builders have converted this outboard leading edge volume into an additional fuel tank. I have looked at the engineering of several builders (much smarter than I am) who have done exactly that, with the detailed loading testing and calculations, and agree with their findings. Within reasonable calculation error, the converted leading edges of the outboard wing will be able to take 6.8 G's of load with full fuel before failure - while the main wing and the rest of the aircraft is only rated for 3.8 with failure at 5.4. Bottomline is that if you are in air rough enough to cause structural failure, it's not the auxiliary fuel tanks that you will need to be worrying about.
My updated fuel system will remove the internal 5 structural leading edge ribs and replace them with 7 fuel tank ribs plus a rear baffle, and will mount to the spar just the same as the inboard main tanks. My venting system will take ambient air into the outboard end of the auxiliary tank, and a fuel pickup at the inboard end of the auxiliary tank will vent into the top of the outboard rib of the main tank for flow-through venting with automatic fuel transfer. I will also install Facet fuel transfer pumps between the tanks to move fuel on demand in the event of a vent transfer line blockage. I will have electric fuel pumps in the wing root pulling fuel from the main tanks directly to the injector divider without using an engine-driven fuel pump, which will enable me to run E10 premium auto fuel without vapor lock issues. All rubber components will be removed from the fuel system, and all fuel-wetted aluminum surfaces will be alodined to hold off corrosion, which can be more problematic with ethanol-containing fuels.
After spending the majority of my time in spam-cans ("sluggers" in the words of Doug Reeves), I have found myself ready to kill everytime I point the nose into the wind and fight for every knot of groundspeed I can get. I'm paying $100/hr for this noise? And burning how much fuel? I wanted my own airplane so bad I could taste it, but when I started adding up the costs associated with that route it made my eyes roll back in my head. In the first place, I WANTED (really, really badly) an airplane with empty Mooney cold-day climb performance and T210 cruise speeds and altitudes, on a 152's fuel budget, with a kick-ass head-turning STOL ground run. Of course, I also wanted a dollar bill and the right six numbers, but you know what they say about wishes and fishes...
So to come even remotely close to the kind of numbers I wanted in an airplane, it was quickly becoming obvious that I was going to spend a liver and a kidney, and end up with something along the lines of a Mooney Ovation - and then I'm stuck selling my spleen to buy fuel. Let's not even worry about insurance and maintenance costs, I'm already dead, twitching on the floor. Dream's over. Insert SERIOUS coin to continue.
This was about the time that I got turned onto experimentals - initially simply from the performance aspect. I had no idea about all the cost savings available by doing it yourself, I was just in typical engineering gearhead heaven looking at well-made, custom-built high performance aircraft with few compromises sucking the life out of the airplane. I was looking at the Lancair Legacy pretty hard, the Velocitys for a long time (still love that canard design...), and a few others. Most of the builders I was talking to had good things to say about the Van's kits, and being an all-metal aircraft made good sense to me - it's easy to engineer it correctly, no guesswork on the materials, and easily tooled. The prices for the kits were quite reasonable, at about $30k for the entire airframe, plus engine and avionics. It would be quite easy to build a $60k VFR only aircraft, and a nice IFR unit could be had for $70k with no problem. The performance numbers were quite good, even astounding when you consider the fuel burn. In fact, looking at the weight, speed, and power in comparison to something like the Cirrus, I gotta wonder where the hell is all the fuel going??? It just should not take that much 100LL to push an airplane that small that fast! There are some serious aerodynamic compromises made on today's production aircraft in the name of marketing and liability - compromises that I'm not willing to settle for.
So I started looking pretty hard at the Van's aircraft series - there were at this time over 4000 flying, and they weren't falling out of the sky all the time either, which is a testament both to the pilots flying them as well as the design itself. They have excellent performance, being fully aerobatic with the exception of the 9 and 10 (which had just been released at the time I got interested in the Vans line). Nice short takeoff rolls, good stall speeds, excellent climb rates and cruise speeds, and somewhere or another they left out a whole BUNCH of drag, 'cuz all this was happening on a relatively small engine, giving very respectable fuel flows at full cruise speeds bumping against 200 mph. So lessee here - 2 seats or 4, tandem or side-by-side, nosegear or taildragger? Slider or tip-up? The age-old questions were addressed one by one, and I ended up deciding the 9A would probably be the best bird for my type of flying, with a slider canopy because I live in Texas and I want to be able to taxi with the canopy open to avoid the greenhouse effect in the cockpit. The 9A is adaptable to a wide variety of engines, from 118 to 160 horsepower - but several builders have installed a 180 horsepower engine for enhanced climb rate and high-altitude cruise, mostly for high-density altitude operations.
The idea of the larger engine, though officially taboo according to Vans, was appealling to me for several reasons other than the typical hairy-chest-beating musclehead trying to imitate Tim Allen on his tool show. The engine weight difference is only about 17 pounds, the airframe and engine mounts can handle the increased weight and torque with no issues. Cooling air flow needs to have some attention, but is easily done. The biggest taboo reason given for not exceeding the "official" 160 hp is the ability to more easily exceed Vne for the aircraft - the engineering speed limit. You still cannot exceed Vne in straight and level flight with the 180 hp engine, but it's much easier to do so in a shallow dive than with the 160. This is strictly a pilot issue - not a mechanical one. As long as the pilot flies the aircraft within it's limitations, a 600hp engine (assuming you could get it to fit and fly) is not too much power. The pilot simply has to be in full command of the safe operation of the aircraft - which includes how much power to use at any given point in the flight. My particular typical flight is going to include a lot of long cross-country at high altitude - and the extra power helps with high climb rate to get up there quickly, and keeps a little excess power available as dropping atmospheric pressure robs precious inches from my manifold gauge at cruise altitudes in the low teens. I'll also be crossing the Rockies frequently - and as I've already had one nasty experience with mountain flying in an underpowered airplane, I fully intend to have enough horsepower to extricate my puckered tail from another such situation in a slightly more graceful manner.
I had made the decision early on to run a constant-speed prop, so worrying about what pitch to pick and dealing with RPM restrictions would not be an issue. There is a (very) slight efficiency gain from frictional pumping losses in the larger O360 engine versus the O320, and the price differential between the two is less than 5% for new engines for an available power increase of 12.5%. For any given power output (say I wanted to cruise at 8500 feet and 150 knots, using 125hp), only a certain amount of horsepower is needed - and fuel burn is directly related to horsepower produced, not engine size. My fuel burn would be identical (within instrument error) no matter which engine I was running, though one would be running closer to full power than the other one under those conditions. This has the added benefit of being able to run your high-dollar powerplant at a lower percentage of power output for most of it's life, which will push your TBO out a fair bit.
The kits are fairly complete - coming with almost everything you need to build it except engine, instruments, and tools. Typical build times vary from about 1200 to just over 2000 hours, depending on model and experience. There is a vast network of experienced builders talking to each other and sharing tips, hints, and tricks - something I have not seen with any other manufacturer of kitplanes, at least not to this degree. So the decision was made, the 9A it will be. I'll put an IO360 Lycoming clone in it (fuel injected, normally aspirated) with forward facing cold air induction and electronic ignition. I'll be running a hard IFR glass panel with full engine monitoring for LOP XC trips, with XM weather on board, and two-axis autopilot (a must for any kind of decent IFR flying). I'll probably use the Superior Air Parts XPIO360 engine with 8.5:1 compression ratio pistons, since that engine allows me to operate on 91 octane auto fuel - representing a significant cost savings over the lifetime of the engine.
I'll also be modifying the fuel system considerably from the factory plan. Vans original design has the fuel stored in the two inboard leading edge halves of the wings, with the outboard leading edge being empty structure. Many builders have expressed the desire for more fuel tank volume, and a few builders have converted this outboard leading edge volume into an additional fuel tank. I have looked at the engineering of several builders (much smarter than I am) who have done exactly that, with the detailed loading testing and calculations, and agree with their findings. Within reasonable calculation error, the converted leading edges of the outboard wing will be able to take 6.8 G's of load with full fuel before failure - while the main wing and the rest of the aircraft is only rated for 3.8 with failure at 5.4. Bottomline is that if you are in air rough enough to cause structural failure, it's not the auxiliary fuel tanks that you will need to be worrying about.
My updated fuel system will remove the internal 5 structural leading edge ribs and replace them with 7 fuel tank ribs plus a rear baffle, and will mount to the spar just the same as the inboard main tanks. My venting system will take ambient air into the outboard end of the auxiliary tank, and a fuel pickup at the inboard end of the auxiliary tank will vent into the top of the outboard rib of the main tank for flow-through venting with automatic fuel transfer. I will also install Facet fuel transfer pumps between the tanks to move fuel on demand in the event of a vent transfer line blockage. I will have electric fuel pumps in the wing root pulling fuel from the main tanks directly to the injector divider without using an engine-driven fuel pump, which will enable me to run E10 premium auto fuel without vapor lock issues. All rubber components will be removed from the fuel system, and all fuel-wetted aluminum surfaces will be alodined to hold off corrosion, which can be more problematic with ethanol-containing fuels.