Van’s Aircraft

The Willamette Valley in western Oregon stretched below us, green vineyards hugging the curves of the river, squared-off farmers’ fields, some browner this year than most, a patchwork of life all fringed by the hills that contain and define this timeless place. On days such as the one we were enjoying, the valley was the […]

Van’s Aircraft introduced an S-LSA version of the RV-12 on Thursday at AOPA Summit in Palm Springs, California. The new model will come completely built, unlike the current RV-12, which is an Experimental LSA (E-LSA). E-LSAs are essentially LSAs that comes in kit form. Van’s president and CEO Dick Van Grunsven said the new model […]

Van’s Aircraft surprised Oshkosh attendees by bringing a fully finished RV-14 to AirVenture 2012 and parking it at the company’s show booth. The long-rumored homebuilt model features side-by-side seating for two and a top speed of 205 mph in a package that Van’s says has been designed both for aerobatic fun and long-distance cruising. The […]

Professional demo pilots working for popular aircraft and kit manufacturers fly hundreds of demo flights a year. Every once in a while their work goes beyond the same old pitch and becomes something different, something memorable. In this piece, longtime Van’s Aircraft employee Ken Scott tells about a demo ride that almost didn’t happen and […]

__It’s not often that an amateur aeronautical tinkerer will hit upon a business idea so perfectly suited for the times that it advances, almost overnight, to become a runaway success story. Such was the case in 1971, when a young engineer from Oregon named Richard VanGrunsven tried, in his own words, to “build a better […]

The hat is familiar — A cream-colored baseball cap with the capital letters VAF (for “Van’s Air Force”) embroidered across the front of it. What’s eye-catching is the rest of the outfit: an immaculate black tux, with tails, worn by a smiling man cradling a Stradivarius violin in his arms. Oh, yes. And then there’s […]