Well, that's a tough question. There are lots of websites describing various ways to choose what type of aircraft would suit your mission so we won't try to explain what process we went through. We were looking for:
- - an airplane with fairly docile stall characteristics (you're not reading the website of a couple of pilots with thousands of hours)
- - relatively low landing speeds and good short field characteristics (we didn't want to be limited to the major airports)
- - decent fuel economy (we're not going to pretend that we're poor but it would be nice to buy that $100 hamburger when we get there)
- - fast enough to fly some major cross country flights (i.e. 1000+ NM) so our mothers can panic
- - range greater than 500 NM
- - capable of carrying the 2 of us, a full load of fuel and light baggage (this was probably the biggest constraint as we're not 5 feet tall weighing 100 lbs)
In terms of construction we knew that we didn't want to build one out of wood for no really good reason other than it seemed “so 1900s”. (Please don't write to tell us why this is wrong) Composite seemed overwhelming and the sanding was too much like doing drywall work (as an aside, the Lancairs look terrific, are fast and are probably too much airplane for us at this point). Aluminium seemed the best option and the one most accessible to us right now.
There were many options and we seriously looked at some other airplanes such as the Zenith Zodiac XL but the Van's models kept coming back to the forefront. Besides the fact that there are lots of RVs flying, the company has a great reputation for customer service (this has been proven as we progress through the empennage kit).
We seriously considered the RV-10. In fact, we went to Sun 'N Fun in 2007, sat in one, and had pretty much decided that that was it. It was big, fairly fast and just looked good. But, in the end, logic won out and the 9A was chosen (although the RV-10 has been talked about as a future project). Why did logic win out you may ask. Cost and size.
So why the “A” part of the RV-9A? We both learned on a tricycle geared aircraft (a Katana DA-20 at Ottawa Aviation Services) and wanted to own one. That's not to say that we're against a tail-dragger – we're not – it just didn't seem like a good idea for this plane and for us at this time.
That's the basics of why we made our decision.
