No one is dead, and no one will die in the making of this web site, but if we all survive the making of the airplane I will be pleasantly surprised.

It all started back in December 2000 when Baron (with a name like that what else could he be besides a pilot) and I got married. Baron was a radio operator in the Air Force and comes from a family of pilots so I knew that planes were going to be a big part of our lives.    When we moved to Oklahoma we decided that the time was right and we TOOK THE PLUNGE.

On the sly I ordered the kit, and that's when the real work began...no not building the plane, hiding the Empennage from Baron.   Well it arrived so quickly from Van's that I was the one taken by surprise (Van's is THE BEST).

You can learn more about us on the About Us page.

I JUST realized that some of the people coming here might not know WHAT an RV-8 really is. A Kit built airplane is one that YOU built, some people build their plane from the ground up and others (like us) buy a kit from a company. The kit that we are buying (a piece at a time) comes 49% complete and we finish the 51% ourselves. (see the picture below for the kit)

To own an airplane in the US you are required to have an "annual" done yearly. Basically the plane is taken apart checked and put back together again to make sure that it is safe to fly by a hired mechanic. If you built the plane (or at least 51%) you are allowed to do the annual yourself and make changes to the plane without having to hire a mechanic.

If you equate this to a car, you would have to hire someone to change a belt or hose (I know most of us do that already), but everything involved with planes is really $$$$$$. This way we can fix things and if WE WANT we can have someone else work on it.

This is what we will end up with (hopefully) in the end.

THIS is what we will have to work with to start. You order the Kit a section at a time, starting with the Empennage (tail section) and finishing with....well the finishing kit.

There is no way that I could explain the kit build airplane well enough so I will let Vans do the talking on their web site http://www.vansaircraft.com. For the skinny on WHY a kitbuilt check out this link also at Vans.

visitors since May 10, 2005