For last year's Convention, they had to Vulcan MG's added to them, in addition to a "supercharger" engine, IIRC...... the one's at the Con certainly flew faster than what you can pull now.
Those 2 rotary cannons were a lot of fun. Like laser cannon.. Convention attendants were set loose in the old Main Arena. Some of us managed to gain access to them during the night.
Mass chaos and confusion. After word got out non-conventioners were using them, they shut them down, but we continued to hot pad them for a long time after that. After planes, we starting killing GV's en mass. RV-8 could pop a Tiger in one pass.
Now, RV-8 just a fun little observation plane in war arenas if you can find a field that allows you to up them on some maps, plus play with offline, and TA.