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RV-9A Open Cockpit

B

bgaston

Well Known Member
I have removed my canopy for maintenance and for better access to install my A/P pitch servo. Looking at the airplane (canopy off), a crazy idea came to me....I have never flown in an open cockpit airplane and just was curious how my RV-9A would handle with the canopy removed? ...No, I'm not going to try it, my wife (and co-pilot) already brought me back to reality.
 
There have been a couple of discussions in the forum on this. I suspect that it *might* work at the low end of the envelope but probably wouldn't be any fun.

Disclaimer - I've never flown an open-cockpit plane (and if anyone wants to fix that problem, please let me know!)

greg
 
Here, take the canopy off this one and do an aeronautical study:

EFL2775-GAL1.jpg
 
OPEN COCKPIT........ Go get any Accessories Catalog from Van's and look on the back cover. There you will find a picture of an RV4 with "NAVY" on the side, 930 on the cheek and a slider. This is a Petaluma CA plane. The builder made a replacement for the slider that covers up the rear seat and forms up behind his head.

And it makes a single seat, open cockpit RV4................. But that's only one trick that this aircraft can do......................:D
 
I saw a competition report with pictures where RV was flying with open cockpit (won precision landing award). Pilot mentioned noisy environment but it was easy to manage.
 
new ideas?

Isn't it funny what we consider risky or aerodynamicallly irresponsible, back in the days of 'experimentals' this was very typical. Many prototypes, and I stand to be corrected, were built someplace warm, and blown canopies were expensive, so you saw a lot of Volksplanes, T-18's, Jodel, etc. on the pages of Sport Aviation sans canopies. Ok, a lot were shaped to provide flow from the windscreen to the rear bulkhead, but nonetheless, it was accepted that they would fly fine, with a drag penalty, and some tail buffet in certain configurations.
(No, I am not going to try this with my -9a either, as I am not a test pilot or designer!)
 
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