Today I had the opportunity to visit Vans Aircraft and go on a Factory tour. Since it was the day after new years the factory was pretty quite. Many of the employees were taking an extra day off. It was amazing how organized the warehouse is and seeing all the machinery used in kit production. There was another man from Washington who was also looking at getting an RV12, but the factory built one.
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| Vans Aircraft |
After the tour we wanted to go on a demo flight. The plane that they normally do demo flights in was gone, but luckily they had one in the hangar that they were installing the Garmin G3X in and it was available to fly. I went first and being a cold morning it did take a little time for the oil temp to get warm enough to take off. Jose, from Vans Aircraft, took off and then I was able to fly a bit. I practiced some turns and maneuvers. Jose showed me some things also to demonstrate some of its capabilities. The plane flew great and performed better than any Cessna that I am usually flying. We landed back at Aurora and of course I had that RV grin.
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| Getting ready to fly |
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| RV Grin after flight |
After the flight it was time to decided whether I, for sure, wanted to start building a RV12. Why, yes I did! Vans had the empennage kit in stock, but not in crates. Since I had my truck I could load the parts in the back of the truck and save on crating fees. They rolled the parts out on a cart and I loaded them into the back of my truck. They all fit except a few of the longer parts I had to put at an angle. On the way home I stopped by Costco and Lowes to get some shelves and organizing bins for all the parts.
I am now the proud owner of Vans Kit #120895. It was also Vans' first kit sold in 2015!
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| Empennage / Cone kit on cart |
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| Empennage / cone Kit in back of truck. |
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