Great plane. Take the time to really get to know the plane, and tweak it to meet your needs.
Here is from my 4 hour flight back from oregon.
Hope you can figure out where it is.
I flew my RV9A today for the first time, yes I bought it from a friend who built it. I did training with Mike Seager to transition to this from a Cessna 182, WOW everything he taught was spot on as was my flying because of it! Fly at speed it's perfect.
Walt
I agree with what John is saying. The 9A is a very straight forward airplane - no surprises. I did some stall practice today - down to 46k, buffet, then slight drop in left wing. Recover in about 100 feet. Then on the way back to the airport I was in cruise mode at 150k. They are quite a bit slicker than a Cessna so you do have to think about what you are doing when you want to land but go-arounds are just plain fun!
What a fun place. We used to ride our bikes from Placerville to Yosemite. Did the John Muir Trail from Tahoe to Whitney one year. Beautiful.
My transition CFI had owned an RV-6A with fixed-pitch prop. He initially warned me about how slick this RV-9A would be and that it would require some pre-planning in order to get it down to appropriate speeds in the pattern. So initially, I slowed it down and was dragging that thing in from 10 miles out. It was boring. I have since found that with its constant speed prop, I can enter the pattern at pattern altitude and only then throttle back to 15/2300. I'll be at approach speed as I turn base even if I'm doing an overhead break. The CS prop makes all the difference relative to speed management in the pattern.
I have a CS prop and also have zero problems slowing down in the pattern. Which is good because the flap extension speed on the -9 is relatively low (the airplane’s only real quirk, IMHO, and it’s pretty minor).
Actually, having done a few no-flap landings for practice, I’m beginning to think a 9 with a constant speed prop could do without flaps entirely, like a Cessna 120. No-flap landings in the 9 are a total non-event handling-wise, and the effect on landing distance doesn’t appear to be massive. Obviously with flaps installed it’s better to use them, but I really don’t think they’d be missed all that much if the plane didn’t have them.
No flaps, I'm usually over the fence at 65 knots. Full flaps, 60 knots.
My speed and flap decisions usually depend on the runway and wind. On two of the runways at home, it's rare that I can't make the first turn-off. From the other directions, I either have to fly more than a mile down the runway, or have a very long taxi.
I practice short/soft field landings, but it would be pretty rare for me to land at an airport that would require them.
So for the -9/9As, the flap limit speeds are 100 MPH/87 Kts up to 15 degrees, and 90 MPH/78 Kts to full flaps (32 degrees).