Thierry Bourges and Michael Tate’s new RV-8! | Toulouse - FRANCE RV8 #82013

Thierry writes in to tell the tale of this new RV-8!

Hello Vans’ community,

I am sending you this e-mail to let you know that RV-8 SN82013’s maiden flight took place in Toulouse – France on 08/13/2019. It took us 14 years to complete our RV-8. The engine is an Aero Sport Power IO-375 with dual P-Mag and the propeller is a Whirlwind 200RV. The aircraft performance is as advertised. The stall speeds in clean and full flaps are right on the money and the aircraft has very nice handling qualities. Thank you Van’s for designing such a lovely little aircraft…

A tremendous thank you to Mike, the co-owner and co-builder of the aircraft and to his wife Françoise, to Sonia who allowed me to start and continue this project, to Terry TLZ Lutz for tirelessly sharing his experience and helping throughout the building process and for his fantastic support, to Clotilde who on top of supporting me did a great job on the electric system, to my son James who held the bucking bars many times while he was still a little boy, to Hugues and to all the other ones whose name is not here because the list would be too long… I believe it is also worth mentioning the outstanding patience and support of the Aero Sport Power team…

In attachment is a picture of the landing on the home base 900 foot long runway at the end of the first flight.

TB