Pilot and Builder Mickey Coggins

I’m delighted to announce that my RV-8 is now flying! So many people to thank – Emmett, Sosthène, Heinz, Max, Karl, Georg, Heiri, Dan, Marcel, Anne, Claudio, Michel, Eric, Jon, Thierry, Chris, Emad, Vincent, Olivier, Catherine, all the amazing people at Doug Reeve’s VAF, and probably a dozen other people that helped me with the project. Sincere thanks to my entire family who was very supportive at every step.

I named the aircraft “Hello, world!” as a tribute to my career which started out in software development. Typically the first program you write just prints “Hello, world!” so since this is the first aircraft I have built I thought that name was appropriate.

I received transition training from Anthony Vallon in his RV-8 HB-YXA which was very helpful in making my first flight. In addition to the standard transition training, Anthony helped me practice for possible failure modes and how to handle them. I’m looking forward to performing my EAS flight test plan to learn more about the flight characteristics of my aircraft, and clearly documenting all the important parameters in my AFM. Building an aircraft has been an amazing learning experience, and I hope that the learning continues long into the future.

Details about building “Hello world” see: www.rv8.ch

See you in the air soon, fellow EASers!

11. Aug 2020 Mickey Coggins