So the RV-8 is available from Van's as a kit airplane. Van's does the heavy stuff...forgings and pattern cuts on aluminum and blowing Plexiglas. They stamp out ribs and extrude aluminum. They pre-punch little holes all over everything. Then you pay Van's a bunch of money and a bunch of boxes with tiny little rivets and airplane parts arrive at your door. Then you do the grunt work and put it together. You do, like, 75% of the work (the FAA requires at least 51%, so we're 23% ahead). The RV-8 kit, as mentioned before, has all these little holes all over all the little pieces. This basically means that if the holes line up in the aluminum skin and in the substructure, the airplane is square and you don't need a jig and the airplane will fly straight. Its structure is primarily aluminum, thus conventional, versus graphite or some other composite construction, material that might have some advantages in weight and/or strength, but cannot match aluminum construction for the everyman which, it turns out, is what I am. Aluminum has been used to build airplanes since the 1930s and for good reason....it is light and strong and can be used as skin or longerons or ribs or whatever. Lasts a long time and for a homebuilt airplane, it works for me.

The RV-8 will accept several different engine types, but it is designed for an engine like the Lycoming 180 horsepower four cylinder boring old airplane engine with a Hartzelll constant-speed propeller which, coincidently, is what I want to put on my airplane. Boring engine but dependable, safe, parts are available, is economical, and is a very common airplane engine (see also Cessna 172, Mooney, Piper Cherokee, etc.)

The RV-8 has a tailwheel. I like tailwheels. My flying experience with tailwheels amounts to about 0.5 hours in a Decathlon and a bit of time in DC-3s. But I will practice flying my RV-8 with its tailwheel until I can handle a 15 knot crosswind with the fineness of gently and precisely holding a wing down until that tire chirps, holding the airplane straight with the rudder until I can delicately drop the other main tire down and roll dead straight down the runway. It's a pilot thing and a bit of dying art...that of flying an airplane with the little wheel on the back of the airplane instead of the front. It's a pilot sort of thing. Looking forward to it.

So what about this RV-8. Not too big....wingspan of 24 feet and 21 feet long. The whole thing assembled weights about 1,200 pounds, maybe a bit less if I don't get carried away with little "extras." Its maximum gross takeoff weight is 1,800 pounds, which means it can carry 600 pounds of people and gas....not alot. Maybe one big pilot (ahem) and alot of gas, or one big pilot and a smallish passenger and enough gas to have some fun. Alot of gas in this case is 42 gallons. Probably won't have 42 gallons in it too often as it would be then overweight. And how fast will this little sucker go? It seems the numbers Van's puts out are pretty accurate, and they say about 214 mph true air speed or, in pilotspeak, about 180 knots. At that speed, it would burn about 9 gallons per hour. Pull it back to about 160 knots or so and that would probably drop to 6-7 gallons per hour but you get to go, like, 175 mph. That's, like, 25 miles per gallon, better than my Plymouth Voyager and three times faster and alot cooler, but you can't carry sheets of plywood and it won't have many cupholders. Everything has its purpose. Carry plywood with the Voyager; drink Starbucks in the Voyager; have fun with the RV-8.