Central Fl RV8

I’m looking to buy a built RV, At my home field there are a couple of 6’s and 7’s that I have looked at, but I think I would want an 8. I’m afraid we are too big for a 4.

So I’m asking if someone near central Fl has an 8 that I can look at? I’m based out of Love Field (97FL).

Not asking for a ride etc., Really want to see the cockpit size. I believe we could help manage CG with the fwd baggage compt.

Most of my flying has been done in Tandem sest aircraft, and I prefer tandem, besides most of my flying is Solo.

RV-8 is big

A64Pilot said:

I’m looking to buy a built RV, At my home field there are a couple of 6’s and 7’s that I have looked at, but I think I would want an 8. I’m afraid we are too big for a 4.

So I’m asking if someone near central Fl has an 8 that I can look at? I’m based out of Love Field (97FL).

Not asking for a ride etc., Really want to see the cockpit size. I believe we could help manage CG with the fwd baggage compt.

Most of my flying has been done in Tandem sest aircraft, and I prefer tandem, besides most of my flying is Solo.

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If you are very tall (>6'4") or have really long legs (>36" inseam), then probably good to check out your legroom in an RV-8. Width, you'd have to be a 350lb linebacker to not fit in an RV-8. It's spacious.

I’m 5’10” and 250 She is I think 5’4” and 190 or so.
I believe we would fit in a 4, but CG would be the issue, unless I could add temp ballast to a 4, I don’t think it could carry us, baggage isn’t a big issue, carry a shaving kit full of essentials if you get stuck for weather etc., and ship whatever you need to where your going, and worst case there is a Walmart in almost every town.

We don’t travel all that much, and when we do it’s no more than 3 or 4 hours.

On paper I believe an 8 would be our best bet, a 6 and or 7,9 and we fit, but it’s as tight as it is in our C-140, and that means shoulder to shoulder, We have sat in a 6.
I’ve measured our 140 and a 6 is within an inch of honest width of the 140.

I’ve seen many 4’s or course, but never sat in one, I’ve never seen an 8.
But am led to believe that it could carry us, and even light baggage.

If you can believe Van’s website, an 8 per HP is faster than any RV, even the 9 which is sold I believe as a cross country machine, but an 8 is slightly faster?

According to the website, an 8 with the same motor is as fast or slightly faster than a 4.

Mild aerobatics is all I will ever fly, and 95% of my flying is close, say an hour at a time to local areas, or just out flying.

My budget upper limit is about 90K, and 80 is better of course.

Depending where the empty CG is, you could load 50# fwd baggage and go another 50+# in the rear. Angle valve engine and CS prop would make it easy. My -8 has a parallel valve engine with a lighter WW GA prop and I added 11# to the flywheel to make a 180# passenger and 100# of baggage work.

My preference is parallel valve and fuel injection. The angle valve motors don’t seem to run as long, higher HP comes at a price, and of course they would I’m sure blow the budget.
In truth while I’m sure I’d rather have a 360, I believe a 320 would be enough for us, we don’t have mountains where I fly, and anything over about 130 kts to me is great but not have to have.

How do you add weight to the flywheel? Some kind of prop spacer? that’s not bad for the crankshaft bearing?

Short of having an actual W&B for an “average” 8. I feel sure I can make one work for us. Just based on what others have said.

I’d like to see one though before I start serious shopping and maybe traveling to buy.
Maybe there is something that I don’t know that may make an 8 unattractive for us.

The 8 is the way to go

I have yet to load her where it felt unsafe !

4 or 8

I love my 8 and am currently doing my flight testing at MTOW (lots of ziploc bags of sand), and it performs really well, handles better than I could have imagined, and feels very solid and safe. Mine is built almost exactly like the factory recommends - parallel valve IO-360 with a Hartzell CS prop, and the performance is as they state on the website.

That said, I would not exclude the 4 from your search. Depending on how they are built, they are really capable aircraft. And a 4 will be much cheaper than an 8. I strongly recommend a good pre-buy from someone solid like Vic from Baselegaviation, who can also help you identify the right aircraft, no matter if it's a 4 or an 8, you really want experienced eyes on it.

RV-8 All the WAy

Hey Jody, I have an 8 in SE Florida, F45, If I fly your way, I'll let you know. I'm 5'9", 170 and have had 6'4"/210 lb passengers with no problem. I have io360 parallel and with ability to load front and/or rear can fly to min fuel levels.

dbuds2 said:

Hey Jody, I have an 8 in SE Florida, F45, If I fly your way, I'll let you know. I'm 5'9", 170 and have had 6'4"/210 lb passengers with no problem. I have io360 parallel and with ability to load front and/or rear can fly to min fuel levels.

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I’d appreciate it, if possible. I can probably come your way too of course.

It’s a sellers market, tough to figure out why, but everything from boats to campers, airplanes even houses are selling.
Makes you wonder how tough the economy really is, if everything is selling so well, so that means RV’s are hard to come by it seems.
Before I get serious and start traveling to inspect etc., it woud be nice to see an example.