Cover Story

October 2007 Issue

Van's RV-8: Sport Plane Standard Setter

With recent improvements in the kit, did Van’s best tandem-seat design just get better?

The RV-8 arguably is the standard sport plane of our era. As we went to press in early July, there were 714 RV-8s flying among the 5200 RVs of all types. The only models with larger fleets samong RVs are the -4 and the -6/6A. It trails the -4 by 500 units, but you could easily see the RV-8 making up the gap in its lifetime, especially now that the whole kit is built with pre-punched (or matchhole) components. It has set the standard--in performance and handling--for today's sport planes.

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