Today I met Larry Perryman, whoi flew his RV-9A to CLL so I could have a ride. We went down to Brenham for lunch, while JMR brought his boys and also took my son Ben.

The RV flew very nicely, though more slowly than I expected (130 KIAS, or 150 mph in cruise). He had his Quinti prop set to fixed pitch because of some hub malfunction, so there may have been 10 kts left in the system.

The Subaru was very smooth, and the plane handled well (he let me take it for 15 minutes between CLL and 11R). There are still a couple of unknowns (7A vs 9A, subaru vs lycoming) and I need to raise about $50K to make the dream a reality. Right now, I'm looking at $7K for the VW, $4K from taxes, $6K from consulting and about $5K in the bank, for a total of $22K to get started. That should last me a year, or until the airframe is built.

One way to save a little (about $10K) would be to put a Lycoming 235 into the RV-9A. It would give up HP, but I think I could get one for arounf $10K, instead of $26K I have budgeted for a subaru supercharged.

Performance with the O-235 includes a cruise speed of 149 mph, vs 167 mph for the lycoming 160 hp or the subaru.

We'll see...