There are now eight separate aircraft in the
RV family (four of which come in either a tri-gear
or tailwheel configuration). All told, more than
18,000 customers have bought and started RV
plans or kits, and more than 7,500 of those planes
are completed and flying. Approximately 500
new RVs take to the skies every year (or an average of 1. 5 per day), which is more than half the
annual total of new homebuilt aircraft added to
the fleet. It’s also more piston aircraft a year than
any general aviation production company is currently managing.
What has made RV aircraft so incredibly popu-
lar, and Van’s Aircraft so incredibly successful?
Van pauses for a moment when I ask him that
question. “Well,” he says, “I would like to think, if
it came down to one single thing, it’s because of
the way they fly. Not the performance, but the way
the airplane feels, and the way it makes you feel
when you fly it. There are a number of other fac-
tors, of course—price, build-ability, the
performance numbers—but if [they weren’t] so
completely enjoyable to fly, [they] wouldn’t have
been so successful.”
If the RVs are “completely enjoyable to fly,” it’s
because that was the dream their designer had
when he first set out to build—or rather, modify—
his first airplane.
Dick VanGrunsven grew up as one of eight
children in a Dutch settlement south of
Portland, Oregon. His father was primarily a
farmer, although he always had a second job
doing something. And growing up on a farm,
Van and his brothers learned a lot about working
with, and fixing, mechanical equipment. Van’s
father had learned to fly in the 1930s, “before
the money ran out,” as Van puts it, and Van and
his two closest brothers (he’s the second oldest)
were always interested in flying. When Van was
a teenager, his father finally agreed to purchase
a $750 Piper Cub.
