The RV kits are just well designed. It possible to built it yourself (with A LOT of effort) and it flies really well. The kit core parts are manufactured to high quality and while some component are selected to keep the price down on the kit they are possible to replace with other components of higher quality. The fuel valve and break lines fx I remember being such things I wanted to upgrade. The freedom that exist in this regard in the experimental world is appealing. The drawings and instructions are well thought through. It’s also a very well proven concept which means that while it’s a homebuilt you are not taking a chance on the design itself.
I think many builders built because they like that part of the process, once done they sell the machine. To me building an RV8 was about getting a real sports aircraft I could not otherwise afford at the time. And the challenge to built it of course. I started building it in my parents garage while still in school. The kit is designed so you can buy it piece by piece to spread out the cost. You can start with the relatively inexpensive tail components in the empennage kit which cost less than 2000$. If you screw something up, just order new parts. And once done with that you feel it’s a real achievement inspiring more building.
Few other GA planes can match it for its sports properties. Mine will do more than 2000/min climb or close to 3000/ft one up with little fuel on board. Cruise at 170 ktas on 36 ltr/h at 8000 ft. Fully aerobatic and the center lines seating with bubble canopy on the RV8 gives excellent visibility you don’t find in any side by side or 4 seater. It can operate off short grass fields and in my opinion with the right paint job it looks really good . It’s the kind of plane that you wear. With center stick and light control forces it gives you a different feel to flying that a Cessna or Piper will ever do. I once read in a flight test review that the RV8 was a poor mans spitfire which I think is not entirely off. I do formation flying in a team with mine now and it works very well there too. It’s also good for touring with two baggage rooms and reasonable range. Overall en excellent sport aircraft.
Would I ever built one again? No, because the amount of time and dedication that goes into a project like that is a once-in-a-life time thing at least for me.
Silvaire wrote:
It’s the result of very careful detail design
Indeed. At Osh last year I attended a lecture by a NASA dude (I think I remember) using some NASA optimizing software to improve the wing on an RV-8. The RV wings looks down right primitive, just a hershey bar wing with way too little AR, thus “common sense” dictates all kinds of improvements are possible. The lecture ended with the conclusion that the original wing is the perfect compromise. He could improve cruise by a couple of knots, but not without disproportional worsening of other aspects (don’t remember exactly what).
The performance envelope is way beyond anything else. It is a fast cruiser, a bush plane, an aerobatic plane, just as perfect for “burger runs” as it is for travelling around the globe. Simple and straightforward to maintain. No matter what your “mission” is, the RV will do it like no other GA plane (except the extreme ends of course. A CC is a better bush plane, a Lancair 360 is a better (faster) cruiser and an Extra is a much better aerobatic plane, but that’s the only thing they are good at).
They are good airplanes and they are new airplanes. Today´s certified market is expensive beyond any reason and will die because of it. That makes the RV´s very attractive to many who wish to fly a new airplane but don´t have the cash for a certified one.
In the US, the experimental market has demonstrated how the state of GA really is: Certified aviation is basically collapsed under the regulatory costs and often impossible certification standards, whereas experimentals are not under those laws and can do a lot of stuff the certified ones can´t. This does show the absurdity of the situation. CYA regulation has killed the certified marketplace, whereas in the experimental market there are good and bad designs and airplanes around but they do not have to conform to the strict stuff the certified ones have to.
What is needed is to completey overwork the regulatory framework for airplanes of this class and then have the same rules for everyone. There is no reason why RV´s can´t be mass produced as Cirrus are, other that they would have to be certified, but all in all something in between the free-for-all of the experimentals and Airliner standards for certifieds should be conceivable which would bring certification cost to a managable amount and at the same time open the market for RV and Lancair e.t.c.
AdamFrisch wrote:
What is the deal? I see no groundbreaking innovation there, just a bog standard plane designed exactly the same way most other planes are. Why is everyone so obsessed with these, talking about the “RV grin” etc?
Precisely because there is no ground breaking innovation, they are a bog standard plane – but one that beats most the other bog standard certified and homebuilt types of similar power in nearly all categories.
Many fast kitplanes have awful low speed handling (so bad some of them wouldn’t be certifiable) or require you to have to deal with nasty chemicals to build, or both. Many kitplanes with great low speed handling are also very slow. There just aren’t many aircraft that are (a) straightforward to build (b) reasonably quick with good climb performance (c) also have safe low speed handling characteristics (d) capable of basic aerobatics and (e) require no nasty chemicals during the build process and (f) well undestood by any inspector or A&P when you need help with something. It’s just a good design all around.
I am not sure it is the cost quite so simply. RVs sell for a lot of money. You can buy a nice TB20GT (admittedly a 15 year old plane) for the price of a ready built good quality well equipped used RV.
IMHO, and having looked at this a few times myself, I think the attraction is
The downside is of course the usual: it is uncertified so in Europe needs the various permits, and cannot generally fly IFR even with the UK LAA approval, but (from the UK at least) France is OK and most of the owners accept these limitations. In the USA these limitations don’t exist.
The other thing is that – like all homebuilts – it is sensitive to the competence of the builder and that can be highly, ahem, variable 
I have flown in an RV where you could see the ground below through the gaps in the skin.
Peter wrote:
The other thing is that – like all homebuilts – it is sensitive to the competence of the builder and that can be highly, ahem, variable
On the -3, -4 and -6 that can be the case, but not on all the others, it’s a thing of the past. The kits come with CNC pre-cut and pre-drilled parts, perfect match, and a lot of them are also so called quick built, where the majority of building is done at the factory. Besides, there is a difference between OK (safe and sound) and the handiwork of a master, but that difference has nothing to do with strength or safety. Just about all the VWII aircraft were built by housewives with no formal education bucking rivets, and a modern SEP (homebuilt or factory) is nowhere near the complexity of a WWII aircraft.
With a riveted metal plane, everything shows. With a fiber glass plane, everything can be hidden, it’s just a question of applying gelcote filler and sanding for a year or two.
Most metal kits nowadays are pre-cut and pre-drilled, and they use pulled rivets. There really isn’t much that can go wrong with the basic airframe structure. The RV’s use bucked rivets, which require some more practice/attention, but so many of them, it’s not much of an issue. It’s been said (don’t know if it’s actually correct) that Van put in twice the amount of rivets normally required, just to be on the safe side.
In any case, the main problem with the homebuilt aircraft “industry” is that people are way too painstakingly accurate and careful when building them, and end up building for 15 years instead of 3-4. Quick built, pre-drilling etc in later years has helped tremendously though. Carbon fiber is so complex and requires ovens etc, so parts are either 100% finished, or the builder can “build” at the factory. Carbon will never beat riveted aluminium on value/price for homebuilt, but can drastically reduce build time (Glasair promise 2 weeks). To this date no carbon plane with better performance than an RV exist anyway.
LeSving wrote:
Just about all the VWII aircraft were built by housewives with no formal education bucking rivets,…
But these planes only had to last for 10 hours on average With typical American hire&fire corporate culture most (commercial) GA aircraft are not riveted together by skilled craftsmen either. Just look under any access panel of anything from Pa28 to CJ4… (just now two of the 8 Citations in our hangar are leaking fuel from loose rivets).
LeSving wrote:
… or the builder can “build” at the factory.
I always found that concept ridiculous. Spend two weeks at the factory “supervising” people pulling aircraft parts from the autoclave and glue them together using equipment and rigs which fill an entire hangar. This has absolutely nothing to do with homebuilding and only saves the manufacturer the hassle of getting his aircraft and factory certified whilst dumping all possible liabilities onto his customer. AFAIK this is only really possible in the States.
LeSving wrote:
(Glasair promise 2 weeks)
It takes two weeks, OK. But not two man-weeks… Airbus only needs 4 days to build an A320 using the same rationale. And if the CEO of Lufthansa is present at the factory in Toulouse during those four days he can paint “Experimental” on the plane and call himself a homebuilder.
LeSving wrote:
To this date no carbon plane with better performance than an RV exist anyway.
That’s very difficult to say. There are of course carbon planes which exceed the envelope of an RV in every direction – the latest competition aerobatic planes can withstand +/- 20g for example, others give you more miles per gallon and others again will cruise at over twice the speed. But you are probably right that there is no single carbon plane which can do everything like the RV.
The “mostly built” option exists for European made aircraft too. AIUI the general rule is that the builder needs to participate in 51% of the building operations 
I also don’t think the problem in the USA is with firing people. I think the problem is that most people with a brain choose to work in a more “dynamic” and “exciting” industry, which leaves you with a bunch of “old” people (mostly skilled and reliable, but they won’t be around for ever), and a small number of younger people who are looking at the door.
I have recently seen the insides of a WW2 Mustang and the build quality is amazing.
Any P-51 Mustang you can possibly have seen was restored at least 5 times since WWII and if you see a nice example at an airshow today it is MUCH better than any of them were when they were new.
One of the main advantages of the RVs is their full aerobatic capability. There’s not many basic aerobatic planes beeing built today. I did my Aerobatics course on a (fine) Zlin 242, then was a basic aerobatic trainer from Robin, and then there’s the Citabria. That’s about it. An RV-8 is a pretty good aerobatic plane AND a good traveler for two people.
Alexis wrote:
One of the main advantages of the RVs is their full aerobatic capability.
But that applies to a small minority of pilots / customers only. Of all pilots I know and ever knew maybe five did aerobatics. And of all homebuilders I know or talked to no one is into aerobatics.
