I am planning on ordering my van's kit soon. I have yet to decide between an 7 or an 8. One of the many thing that I plan to do with this plane is to visit my family, they live 1/2 way across the country. I am sure there are some people out there with experience flying cross-country in an RV-8. Are there any postive or negatives that are not obvious?
Van's Air Force
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Cross-Country in an RV-8A
- Thread starter Chofrock
- Start date
Im a big guy- 6'5", 250 lbs so the 8's had a lot of allure. One of the big things that helped me decide is the utility of having an empty space next to me to hold things like a food cooler, maps, etc. It is pretty hard reaching to the back seat for incidentals while strapped in. Id also rather have passengers next to me where we can talk and see each other, eye to eye.
I finally ordered a 9A this week btw- the performance is about the same as the 7A with similiar power (I plan on going with a 200HP rotary- same weight as 320's), but the 9 has advantages at part throttle settings where most of the flying will be done and is quicker off of short fields. For me, fuel efficiency and long range stability are more important than hammerheads.
I finally ordered a 9A this week btw- the performance is about the same as the 7A with similiar power (I plan on going with a 200HP rotary- same weight as 320's), but the 9 has advantages at part throttle settings where most of the flying will be done and is quicker off of short fields. For me, fuel efficiency and long range stability are more important than hammerheads.
redbeardmark
Well Known Member
XC in 8A
Chofrock,
Cross country in an 8A is no problem. I stuff the oxygen bottle on the right side of the pilot's seat, the MP3 player in the right passenger's footwell, a bottle of water/pop in the left passenger's footwell, and the flight bag along the left side of the pilot's seat.
Comfortable seats are probably the most important factor in XC flying.
Tandem seating is pretty darn hard to beat for "sport" flying.
Chofrock said:
Chofrock,
Cross country in an 8A is no problem. I stuff the oxygen bottle on the right side of the pilot's seat, the MP3 player in the right passenger's footwell, a bottle of water/pop in the left passenger's footwell, and the flight bag along the left side of the pilot's seat.
Comfortable seats are probably the most important factor in XC flying.
Tandem seating is pretty darn hard to beat for "sport" flying.
Real world -8A performance
We travel all over the country in our -8A based in L.A. We just got back from Kansas City last week and I posted this on the So. Cal. RV group. It should give you some genuine performance information. We've been to the east coast several times and are heading out again Sunday for Boise, Glacier National Park and New England. Pacific to Atlantic is three fuel stops. The other direction is normally four but with calm winds I have done it in three. These airplanes are far better cross country machines than most people give them credit for.
Hi all:
Marti and I flew back from Kansas City to Torrance in the -8A today, and
for the third time made it in a single fuel stop. If you look at that
on a map you will see just how astonishing it is. Since this is clearly
not a one time fluke, I wanted to pass on some specifics to those of you
who are still in the building process or who may be flying but who have
not yet pointed the nose at the distant horizon and just kept on going.
I suspect this information also applies to the -7 series since they also
have the 42 gallon fuel tanks. I doubt that the side by side seating
arrangement makes that much difference.
We took off at 8:20 AM Kansas City time from New Century (IXD) and
climbed immediately to 10,000 feet, headed GPS direct for Alamosa, CO.
I filed IFR since the wx to the west was not as good as I had wanted it
to be. About 90% of the trip was at 10,000 but that put us in the
clouds near Lamar, CO so I went to 12,000 to stay on top. Shortly
thereafter we were again in the clag and went up to 14,000 to meet ATC's
minimum vectoring altitude. Nearing Alamosa the clouds broke up and a
quick check of fuel and time to Durango made that the new destination.
We canceled IFR and drifted up to 14,500 for the last half hour and had
to deviate south of track to avoid some buildups. When we landed in
Durango after covering 618 nautical miles (not including deviations), we
had flown 4 hours and 10 minutes and still had 9 gallons fuel
remaining. I had set cruise power at full throttle (20.2 inches), 2300
rpm and mixture leaned to about 7.7 gallons per hour. At 10,000 feet
MSL the density altitude was 12,000 and the true air speed computed to
159 knots. This is with an O-360 and constant speed Hartzell prop.
Average ground speed over the route was 148 knots and average fuel burn
from takeoff to landing was 7.9 gallons per hour. Distance flown
divided by fuel used ended up showing 18.8 nautical miles per gallon.
After lunch and refueling, we took off with the GPS programmed for
direct Twenty Nine Palms, Paradise and Torrance. I had wanted to go to
12,500 but the density altitude at Durango was 9800 feet on the ground
so the plane was a pretty slow climber nearing 10.5 MSL and that is
where we stopped the climb for the duration of the trip. As before I
had set full throttle (20.0 inches) and 2300 rpm, leaned to 7.4 gph. At
a density altitude of 13,000 feet this produced a true air speed of 160
knots. The weather was fine until abeam the Grand Canyon airport,
where three sigmets popped up, tops were predicted to be 44,000 and hail
was anticipated to one inch. All this only matters if you fly too close
to those areas which I did not! Center helped me with some radar
information but flight watch was almost useless, reading me all of the
gory details but unwilling to tell me what the radar scope showed along
my desired track. "That route is all in a sigmet area!" was the best I
could get. I had the distinct impression that their training teaches
them to believe that when a sigmet occurs somewhere near airplanes in
flight, they are supposed to land. I don't know if they ever learned
that if they just told the pilot what he wanted to know, he would avoid
the area and fly safely to his destination. But I digress.
Approaching Needles I could see that there was a lot of activity ahead.
But there were very bright areas and clearly visible ridge lines also.
The nasty part was nearing Twenty Nine Palms, so we diverted south
through a big hole in the line and headed toward Thermal. Everything to
the west was really black, with heavy rain and plenty of lightning. My
game plan (after checking fuel state of course) was to bypass it all by
going to Julian VOR and then to Palomar and up the coast to Torrance.
Turns out it wasn't necessary. Nearing Thermal the clouds to the west
broke and both Palm Springs and Banning Pass were clearly visible. I
told Palm Springs approach of the new plan, basically direct Paradise,
direct Torrance and he was happy with it. There was not much traffic in
his air space since the line ran east to west and just shut off any
departures to, or arrivals from, the north.
We descended to cross Paradise at 8000 and continued on to our landing
at Torrance, where we touched down at 5:40 Kansas City time (3:40 LA
time) after 3+50 enroute. Over the 554 nautical mile leg (not including
deviations) we had burned 31 gallons and landed with 11 remaining.
Average ground speed was 145 knots and fuel burn was 8.1 GPH. This leg
ended up showing 17.9 nautical miles per gallon.
As I have done many times before in the nearly 500 hours I have flying
this airplane, I pushed it into the hangar, closed the door and just
before it stopped sliding, took one last peek at the plane. How does it
do that? This thing that once arrived as just a bunch of parts in boxes
(and who knows how many paper bags!) had again taken us safely across
half the country, over some of the most inhospitable terrain anywhere,
near (but not too near) some very nasty weather and never missed a
beat. It did so economically and reliably. And all it gets in return
tomorrow is the bugs being washed off. Amazing.
Bill Marvel
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
We travel all over the country in our -8A based in L.A. We just got back from Kansas City last week and I posted this on the So. Cal. RV group. It should give you some genuine performance information. We've been to the east coast several times and are heading out again Sunday for Boise, Glacier National Park and New England. Pacific to Atlantic is three fuel stops. The other direction is normally four but with calm winds I have done it in three. These airplanes are far better cross country machines than most people give them credit for.
Hi all:
Marti and I flew back from Kansas City to Torrance in the -8A today, and
for the third time made it in a single fuel stop. If you look at that
on a map you will see just how astonishing it is. Since this is clearly
not a one time fluke, I wanted to pass on some specifics to those of you
who are still in the building process or who may be flying but who have
not yet pointed the nose at the distant horizon and just kept on going.
I suspect this information also applies to the -7 series since they also
have the 42 gallon fuel tanks. I doubt that the side by side seating
arrangement makes that much difference.
We took off at 8:20 AM Kansas City time from New Century (IXD) and
climbed immediately to 10,000 feet, headed GPS direct for Alamosa, CO.
I filed IFR since the wx to the west was not as good as I had wanted it
to be. About 90% of the trip was at 10,000 but that put us in the
clouds near Lamar, CO so I went to 12,000 to stay on top. Shortly
thereafter we were again in the clag and went up to 14,000 to meet ATC's
minimum vectoring altitude. Nearing Alamosa the clouds broke up and a
quick check of fuel and time to Durango made that the new destination.
We canceled IFR and drifted up to 14,500 for the last half hour and had
to deviate south of track to avoid some buildups. When we landed in
Durango after covering 618 nautical miles (not including deviations), we
had flown 4 hours and 10 minutes and still had 9 gallons fuel
remaining. I had set cruise power at full throttle (20.2 inches), 2300
rpm and mixture leaned to about 7.7 gallons per hour. At 10,000 feet
MSL the density altitude was 12,000 and the true air speed computed to
159 knots. This is with an O-360 and constant speed Hartzell prop.
Average ground speed over the route was 148 knots and average fuel burn
from takeoff to landing was 7.9 gallons per hour. Distance flown
divided by fuel used ended up showing 18.8 nautical miles per gallon.
After lunch and refueling, we took off with the GPS programmed for
direct Twenty Nine Palms, Paradise and Torrance. I had wanted to go to
12,500 but the density altitude at Durango was 9800 feet on the ground
so the plane was a pretty slow climber nearing 10.5 MSL and that is
where we stopped the climb for the duration of the trip. As before I
had set full throttle (20.0 inches) and 2300 rpm, leaned to 7.4 gph. At
a density altitude of 13,000 feet this produced a true air speed of 160
knots. The weather was fine until abeam the Grand Canyon airport,
where three sigmets popped up, tops were predicted to be 44,000 and hail
was anticipated to one inch. All this only matters if you fly too close
to those areas which I did not! Center helped me with some radar
information but flight watch was almost useless, reading me all of the
gory details but unwilling to tell me what the radar scope showed along
my desired track. "That route is all in a sigmet area!" was the best I
could get. I had the distinct impression that their training teaches
them to believe that when a sigmet occurs somewhere near airplanes in
flight, they are supposed to land. I don't know if they ever learned
that if they just told the pilot what he wanted to know, he would avoid
the area and fly safely to his destination. But I digress.
Approaching Needles I could see that there was a lot of activity ahead.
But there were very bright areas and clearly visible ridge lines also.
The nasty part was nearing Twenty Nine Palms, so we diverted south
through a big hole in the line and headed toward Thermal. Everything to
the west was really black, with heavy rain and plenty of lightning. My
game plan (after checking fuel state of course) was to bypass it all by
going to Julian VOR and then to Palomar and up the coast to Torrance.
Turns out it wasn't necessary. Nearing Thermal the clouds to the west
broke and both Palm Springs and Banning Pass were clearly visible. I
told Palm Springs approach of the new plan, basically direct Paradise,
direct Torrance and he was happy with it. There was not much traffic in
his air space since the line ran east to west and just shut off any
departures to, or arrivals from, the north.
We descended to cross Paradise at 8000 and continued on to our landing
at Torrance, where we touched down at 5:40 Kansas City time (3:40 LA
time) after 3+50 enroute. Over the 554 nautical mile leg (not including
deviations) we had burned 31 gallons and landed with 11 remaining.
Average ground speed was 145 knots and fuel burn was 8.1 GPH. This leg
ended up showing 17.9 nautical miles per gallon.
As I have done many times before in the nearly 500 hours I have flying
this airplane, I pushed it into the hangar, closed the door and just
before it stopped sliding, took one last peek at the plane. How does it
do that? This thing that once arrived as just a bunch of parts in boxes
(and who knows how many paper bags!) had again taken us safely across
half the country, over some of the most inhospitable terrain anywhere,
near (but not too near) some very nasty weather and never missed a
beat. It did so economically and reliably. And all it gets in return
tomorrow is the bugs being washed off. Amazing.
Bill Marvel
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
