First Flight RV-8

N9669D (our Anniversary) finally got its Airworthiness Certificate 11/14/14 after 13 years of sporadic building and a lot of help from this site and other folks. Waited about three weeks for suitable weather with light winds and good ceiling/viz, temp. about 20 degrees. Acceleration on takeoff awesome and lifted off in about 5 seconds after throttle open. Initial climb 2500 fpm and still good rate at 140-150mph ias. Visibility superb and first landing was a greaser. CHT's low on #'s 1 and 2, addressed before 2nd flight with small air dams up front. Now all is good and CHT spread 10-14 degrees. Just need to get the Lycon IO-360 exp M1B (10:1 comp) broken in. Ken at Vans says I'll like the RV-8 even better after a few years, but that's going to be difficult! Garmin 430W, SL30, GMA340 and GTX330,TruTrak Pictorial turn and bank, round Alt, AS, VSI, g-meter, AFS and Dynon AOA's, Whelan strobes and LED leg, taxi lights. Tosten grips with electric elevator and aileron trim (ident, Transmit, freq switch and AP CWS on stick also). Special thanks to Tom Stearman, Steve Raddatz, Randy Carson, Doug Woofter, Russ Kotlarek, Mike Schreiber, Dennis Millsap, Mike Saeger, Jeff Point and especially my wife Jane, who put up with having her car in the driveway for 11 cold and snowy Wisconsin winters. What a ride!

Congrats, I still have the "Grin" after 35 hours

Bill glad to hear you are in the air! Enjoy the fruits of your hard labor and congratulations!

Bill;
Congrats! I believe Ken is correct, I like my RV-8 more than ever!
Get that Phase 1 flight time done and see the world!

Congratulations!!

Congrats on the new fledgling

Is this the first new RV to fly this year??

Congrats Bill. Great accomplishment!

Congrats, Bill. Great seeing that pile of parts come to life!

Congrats man! Now fly the wings off it....it only gets better. Wait until your first time coming over the top on a loop!

Congratulations! Great news!

Flight

Great way to start the year !

Indeed, g zero nailed it. Great way to start the new year.

congratulations

Great inspiration, thanks!!!

RV-8

Thanks to all who responded to my first flight post. The subsequent flights have been great, but progress in phase 1 is slow because of bad weather. I'm not going to fly at 5? below zero!. Praying for good weather. Thanks again everybody.

Great!!!

Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration for those of us slugging along
Enjoy the new ride!!!

Congrats on the build and first flight, Bill.
The 8 is indeed a fine airplane as you have discovered for yourself.

Congrats Bill, way to go! Great to hear about the 8 you showed me in your driveway after OSH-10 is airborn! Very happy for you! How 'bout some pics!!

Cheers,
Bob

CONGRATS!

Very Inspirational!

Some things were left out of my first post. Nothing much was said about Vans. Richard VanGrunsven is a genius as we all know. He also created a company culture of honesty, transparency, excellent customer service and just general goodness. Through the build I might find a part needed. It was great to look it up on line and then quickly and easily order. Or if the part couldn?t be identified, just call Vans to speak to a pleasant, informed individual who could identify the part and take the order. Either way the part would show up promptly, well-packed and for a reasonable shipping cost. What a great outfit and a blessing to all of us builders! Recently our credit card was deactivated between giving an order and shipping, so it didn?t go through for Vans. They sent the order anyway, just asking me to call and update card info. That?s customer service. This excellence was found while dealing with so many folks in the aviation business, including Cleaveland, Avery, ACS, Dynon, AdvancedFlightSystems (Rob and his family are an inspiration), EAA and many others. This activity puts you in contact with pilots, builders and other quality people, many of whom become good friends and provide encouragement along the way. Connie Martin, Chief Inspector at the Milwaukee FSDO, was amazingly helpful in obtaining the airworthiness certification. All of these people are some of the cream of our country and help make it great. I admire those in other countries who build RV?s in less easy environments. Doug Reeves and this site have been an incredible resource and continued encouragement. Thanks to you all. Thanks to Van, for an amazing experience which produced every imaginable emotion as you wrote it would.

Hey Bill, how big a test area did Connie give you?

Phase one area

Hi Jesse. She gave me 100 nm around KGRB. Jeff said yours was large. How many hours have you now?