Homebuilder's Workshop: Fetching the RV-8
By Ed Wischmeyer
The RV-8 in flight. (Courtesy of Ed Wischmeyer)For quite some time, I’ve figured that the RV-8 was probably what would best meet my needs and desires in a sport airplane. There have been any number advertised for sale, many with over-personalized paint jobs, excessive equipment, and astronomical price tags.
Eventually, though, one showed up on the west coast that looked pretty good, and at a good price. However, there are plenty of homebuilts of all sorts out there with beautiful cosmetics but shoddy wiring and engine installation. Those fears were allayed when it turned out that a long-term friend knew the airplane, knew the builder, and knew the seller. Plus, the picture of the engine installation showed numerous details nicely done. As a bonus, those frustrating piano wires in the hard to reach parts of the cowling had been replaced with Dzus fasteners. With absolutely no bargaining on the price, I mailed off a deposit check.
On July 4, I hopped on board the airlines and headed for LAX. The original plan had been to fly from Savannah, Ga., to Arizona in the beautiful old Cessna with its new owner, but he backed out the night before he was supposed to fly out. The next plan had been to fly into Burbank, but airline weather delays the night before carried over to the next morning, so I flew from Savannah to Atlanta to San Francisco to Los Angeles. As we landed at San Francisco, I saw triple glideslope antennae as we landed and wondered what would happen if those were out of service, a tragic premonition…
But traffic was light on the Los Angeles freeways as we headed for Santa Paula, Calif., where the hangar across the way held three Questair Ventures, a BD-5J, plus a Legend and a scale P-51 hanging from the rafters.
The seller gave me a cockpit checkout, including the inevitable quirks. For example, the capacitive fuel gauges did not work correctly, and the fuel pressure gauge worked, but the readings varied according to all kinds of circumstances. Disappointingly, the tailwheel was the direct steering linkage kind, a design that I have never trusted.
Next morning, I waited for the fog to lift before heading east. First stop, Page, Ariz., so that I could see some of northern Arizona and southern Utah, and later swing through Monument Valley.
My old RV-8A was nose heavy, and I flew it solo with two cases of water in the rear baggage compartment to keep the cg where I wanted it. I did the same with the RV-8, not really considering that with its O-320 instead of an O-360, it didn’t need the same amount of ballast. In the inevitably bouncy desert air, the result was an enthusiastic Dutch roll response to turbulence, with the tail wagging and the wings rocking. At Page, half of one case went into the forward baggage area in case of a landing out in the toolies, and the rest was donated to the FBO.
But back to the flight. There was lots of high country, and I know from experience that I am subject to mild hypoxia starting at 8,000 feet, and this route took me that high or more. But the view was spectacular, including the granite along Lake Powell, plus several areas where there was absolutely no sign of human presence.
The air was hazy, and I found out later it was smoke from the Colorado fires. But with the accumulated stresses, excitement, fatigue, turbulence, temperatures, time zone change, burning eyes and everything else, the landing in Page gave no indication that I’d ever landed a taildragger, 350-plus hours of RV-4 time and a recent hour of dual in a Citabria notwithstanding. With the XM weather showing precipitation popping in the desert skies ahead, I called it a day. It was noon.
The next day started with the last high country leg, headed to Taos, N. Mex., where the landing was less traumatic because I had called the seller for landing advice. That was to keep the tail up as long as possible. I did keep the tail up, but not enough, and the landing was only less bad. I filled the tanks and prepared for a three-hour leg across high surface winds in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
I also posted a note on vansairforce.com and asked if anybody wanted to trade a steering rod for conventional tailwheel springs, giving my iPhone number to receive a text message. Two and a half hours into the flight, I received such a text message (!) and turned around, flew a half hour back to West Waterford, Okla., and landed into a 20 mph wind right down the runway. And an hour after that, I had tailwheel steering springs and chains, free and installed, courtesy of a kind EAA / RV soul. The chain tension was set to my specification – but I specified too loose, as I found out later in the trip.
One more 90-minute flight got me to Tahlequah in far eastern Oklahoma, the headquarters of the Cherokee nation, where I spent the night. Next morning, it was time to start considering the considerable moisture that had taken over the East Coast. (As I write this, that moisture continues to cause light plane mischief after four weeks, non-stop.)
The first gas stop was only 90 minutes away, but at the edge of the low scattered clouds. With excellent visibilities underneath, I headed east to where the XM radar indicated the edge of the front was. As I got closer, I realized that my intended destination was right on the edge of heavy rain and would probably be engulfed soon, so I changed destinations to get a new plan, more gas just in case, and to take a break.
All of those were good ideas, and I was soon back in the air under low clouds, with smooth bottoms and in smooth air, over unpopulated areas with 30-plus mile prevailing inflight visibility and weather that wasn’t doing much of anything very fast. The clouds were low, but at this point I had confidence that the gyros in the RV-8 were really good, and besides, I’d polished up my instrument skills just before the trip, anticipating that those skills would be handy in the Cessna. I had multiple outs if needed.
The thin spot of the front had 10-mile visibility, and after flying through that, the skies were mostly clear. The occasional thunderstorms were easily identified on the XM and easily circumnavigated visually.
Coming towards Savannah, winds were reported as 15 gusting to 20 at a 30-degree crosswind, and that unforecasted condition was a challenge that I declined. I still had a hangar at Wright Field near Savannah, where winds were advertised at 8 to 10 at a 20-degree crosswind. A friend came and drove me home, and the trip was essentially done.
I did a lot of things right in terms of risk management, such as getting tailwheel and instrument instruction before leaving, and taking lots of breaks along the flight. But I realized after I made the last landing that, despite numerous sips from the water bottle, I was dehydrated. And I “knew” that I needed the ballast in the aft baggage compartment.
But the biggest surprise was the RV-8 handling characteristics on the ground, something I’ve never read or heard about in 30 years of associating with RVs. I’ll be getting some RV tailwheel dual from Jan Bussell in Florida, if the weather ever clears enough for me to get down there. He writes:
“The 8 gear is a lot stiffer than the 4. Most people over correct on the rudder on landings, or make too large of a correction. The best procedure is to stop nose movement when you detect it and then stop the correction – do not try to make a change in heading until you first stop the original motion and know it is stopped, then make a very small correction in the direction you want to go. Sounds easy but is hard to do, especially after Citabria time where the corrections are necessarily large.”
But the real surprise came when I went out to the hangar to shorten the tailwheel steering springs. The spring-loaded tailwheel steering pin was stuck inside the (vertical) tailwheel steering axle. Not only had I flown the RV-8 home with no tailwheel steering, I’d flown it home with no tailwheel centering. No wonder I’d had problems!
Instead of using the brakes intentionally, with finesse, as the previous owner did, I’d been counting on the non-existent tailwheel steering and using the brakes as a last resort.
So now I have two beautiful airplanes, one more than I really want. But with the steering fixed, the RV-8 should soon become for me the plane that it really is.
