Not a fan of -8. After you have flown -4 or 6, the -8 flies quite a bit differently. Killed a couple of people early on with the wings coming off due to redesigning the wing spar (which didn't cut down on weight or parts).
Please get your facts straight if you are going to bash the RV-8 design! Sheesh!
The RV-8 demonstrator came apart in flight due to a static overload above the Ultimate design load of the airplane. The RV-8 spar/wing
was not changed at all due to the in-flight breakup of the factory demonstrator (N58RV). After the accident Van hired outside loads, stress, structures, and flutter consultants who thoroughly evaluated the design. In addition, Van's purchased a set of wings from a builder who was selling his partially completed kit. Those representative builder-built wings were then static load tested to 9 g's with no failure. This was the second static load test of the RV-8 wings, the first was the testing Van's did originally for the design. No design or manufacturing fault was found, and no changes were made to the RV-8 wing at that time. Van actually wrote all this up in detail and here is the link to the article:
From the article:
Later however, the RV-8 wings were modified (the so-called "Dash One" wings) for commonality with the RV-7 wings (Remember, the RV-7 came out several years after the RV-8) . This did lead to a 50 lb increase in the Aerobatic Gross Weight of the RV-8s with the "Dash One" wings (from 1550 pounds to 1600 pounds), but no increase in the recommended Gross Weight of 1800 pounds. Note that at the recommended Gross Weight of 1800 pounds, the RV-8 (and RV-7) is stressed for the Utility Category g-limits of +4.4g/-2.2g.
Buffeting issues with gear/wing intersection to the tail on landings. More complex to build with gear towers and restrictive in the front seat with gear towers.
The adverse interaction of the vortices of the wing/fuselage intersection and the gear/fuselage intersection at high AoA's can be easily tamed by fuselage strakes. Both my previous RV-8 and my current RV-8 have those and there is NO buffet on landings (including 3-pointers).
The strakes are shown in the pics below. Note that the upper gear leg fairings are different between the two airplanes. Their design makes a difference in the strength and interaction of the two vortices coming from the wing/fuselage intersection and the gear/fuselage intersection. Those vortices affect the HStab and elevator effectiveness in the flare, and tail shake (pre-stall buffet) due to flow separation at high AoA's. The strakes help tame the two vortices and alleviate and delay their adverse effects. A very good design of the upper gear leg fairings could, and do, provide the same benefits that the strakes provide.
Previous RV-8 with Twin Cessna nacelle strakes:
Current RV-8 with custom carbon fiber strakes: