An RV-8 is a two seat, all metal sport aircraft.It cruises at 200mph is fully aerobatic has excellent short field takeoff and landing capabilities all with beautiful handling qualities and climbs rates around2500fpm-IFR capable (if equipped)It was designed in 1995 and kits became available from Vans Aircraft in 1998. It is modeled after the famous RV-4 design from Vans, but it incorporates many "enhancements" that customers wanted, i.e. more baggage, more leg and shoulder room, sliding canopy, etc. Unfortunately this made the airplane bigger than the RV-4 so there are some that say it gives up handling qualities to the -4, some disagree. I have only flown an RV-4 so I cannot compare them. The RV-8 uses all "match drilled" parts, which allows the builder to avoid the complicated and time comsuming task of laying out all the rivet holes perfectly. This reduces the build approximatley 500 hours or more, not inconsequential! I plan to modify my canopy and windshield to create a better proportions between it and the rest of the airplane - my opinion is the canopy is way too big for this size of airplane.Below are representative examples of some of my favorite RV-8s. I hope my airplane looks half as good as some of these.
