I just finished a couple of days with Bruce, but I wanted to post here for others who are facing needing RV-8 training in the future. Let's just say flying with Bruce was worth every penny.
I flew into Hobby, took an uber to an offsite rental car place and got a much cheaper car for the 40 minute drive down to Angleton. Spent a few nights at the Best Western and when I wasn't at the BW I was with Bruce either RV-8 flying or hangar flying.
Bruce has an RV-8 w/ IO-360 and constant speed prop that he's modified to have real rear pedals and brakes. This gives him full control of what he needs from the back. His bread and butter is someone who has a little bit of TW time (and an endorsement) but may be a virgin RV-8 (or -4 or -3) pilot and wants to learn to fly the plane with a knowledgeable body on board before going solo.
He also had a cub for basic tailwheel training and a Pitts for acro training if either of those also fits into your plans. I really wanted a bit of time in the Pitts but the field was too wet to fly it unfortunately.
Bruce lives on his dual grass strips and according to him he's "always there". He would love nothing more than to just fly a few folks a month who want to do transition training, and he will work to your schedule and move around any local students if you come in from out of town. He lives right between two small regional airports that provide a great mix of training opportunity with varying wind components. He's trying hard to stay away from turning into a full time transition trainer who is booked many months out. He wants to be flexible and available.
Bruce knows how to train. He's got more hours, stories, experiences, failures, botched operations than anyone I've been around in the aviation world. He's a tell it like it is guy. He's opinionated, but very good at what he does. If you go to soak up knowledge and are ready to be humble when you screw up, Bruce will keep you safe and make you ever so much better. After a few hours he's simply this voice in the back of your head (literally). If you're hardheaded and just want to log some time for insurance purposes, Bruce is probably not a good fit. He's much more concerned with you getting value out of being with him than he is with the money.
The only caveat I'll share is Bruce is a chain smoker and makes no apologies about it. It didn't bug me at all, but if you're sensitive to it he's probably not your guy.
If you're building or buying an -8 and need transition training I can't recommend Bruce enough. His program was vetted and approved by the FAA.
For my training I was faced with the need to travel to one of the various trainers who do the work, but nobody besides Bruce (that i know of) trains in an -8. While insurance accepts a -7, why not get time in the real thing you're going to be flying? The training was eye opening, humbling, but also got me very comfortable with what the plane is capable of and how I can go about exploring my own airplane as soon as it's flying.
Give Bruce a call or email and he'll go out of his way to fit you in around your schedule.
