Van's brought almost their entire line of kits to Oshkosh. That included one RV-8 that was brought in from a customer. Van's Vice President, Greg Hughes, speaks with us about what's next for the company, and the upcoming addition to their fleet.
“On Monday, we had our ‘What's new and happening at Van's Aircraft’ forum, and we let the cat out of the bag, or opened the curtain a little bit, to tell people about the RV-15, which is the next model coming from Van's Aircraft. What we have announced to date is that it will be a high wing, all metal, backcountry capable airplane. The initial version will be a tailwheel with a tricycle version to follow. It will have a control stick, not a yoke, so those are some of the things we have said. We are super excited about it,” he says.
“I am really looking forward to building one, I can tell you that,” he adds. “It’s actually really unusual for Van's to announce anything before it’s completely done, so this is the first time we have done this,” he continues. Over the years, customers have been asking about a backcountry aircraft so the company decided to finally let them know that this is the direction they are heading in.
Van's has just about 11,000 flying airplanes out in the community, which offers great input and experience while flying their RVs. The RV-15 will be different, Hughes assures, but will still have the characteristics that make an RV, an RV.
“We use the term total performance to talk about the way a Van's Aircraft feels when it flies, and that's very important to us,” he says. “From the perspective of the new airplane model, it’s really primarily a clean sheet design.”
President and Chief Engineer, Rian Johnson, stated in the meeting that it is the company's goal and intent to have the prototype aircraft at Oshkosh 2022.
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