A farm strip in Oregon

Dick VanGrunsven learned to fly in 1956 from a 670-foot strip on his father’s farm near Cornelius, Oregon, earning his pilot certificate at 16. He studied engineering at the University of Portland, hoped to fly fighters, and was kept out of the cockpit by a minor colour-vision problem, serving instead as an Air Force communications officer. Back home he designed lift trucks for Hyster and spent his spare time on aeroplanes. In the mid-1960s he bought a Stits Playboy homebuilt, fitted a bigger engine and then cantilever aluminium wings with flaps, creating the RV-1 in 1965.

The RV-3 at Oshkosh

The breakthrough was a clean-sheet design, the single-seat all-aluminium RV-3, which won the Best Aerodynamic Detailing award at the 1972 EAA convention at Oshkosh. It set new standards of performance for homebuilts, and every later RV strongly resembles it. In 1973 VanGrunsven founded Van’s Aircraft to sell plans and kits. The tandem two-seat RV-4 followed in 1979, the side-by-side RV-6 in 1985, and the formula stayed the same: aluminium, monocoque, low wing, good all-round performance at a reasonable price. The RV-6 became the most-built RV and probably the most popular kitplane ever.

One and a half aeroplanes a day

The numbers grew relentlessly. In December 2017 Van’s celebrated its 10,000th completed aircraft, an RV-7 built in Martinsburg, West Virginia; by November 2019 about 10,600 RVs had flown and builders were finishing about one and a half a day. By 2023 more than 11,000 were flying, around one third of the American experimental fleet. Flying magazine called VanGrunsven the undisputed leader in kit aircraft manufacturing. The company even sold RV-6A kits to Nigeria, where they were assembled locally and entered air force service in 1989 as the Air Beetle trainer.

From kits to finished aircraft

The range widened. The four-seat RV-10, the largest RV, flew on 29 May 2003; the RV-12 light-sport aircraft flew on 9 November 2006 and, from 2012, was also sold as a complete aircraft, letting flying schools use it commercially. The roomy aerobatic RV-14 appeared at AirVenture in July 2012. The latest design, the high-wing backcountry RV-15, flew in June 2022, and in July 2025 the company announced that kit production had begun, with the first wing kits due at the end of 2025.

Corrosion, laser cuts and Chapter 11

Success did not make Van’s rich. After warning of financial difficulties in October 2023, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 4 December 2023. The causes were corrosion problems costing millions, a switch to laser-cut instead of punched parts that affected about 1,800 kits, and kits that had been priced below the cost of making and shipping them. In 2022 revenue was $52.6 million with a net loss of $3.3 million, and the company had about 110 employees in 2023.

Fabrieken

• Aurora works · Aurora State Airport, Oregon — Headquarters and kit factory

Mensen

• Richard “Dick” VanGrunsven · founder (born 1939) — Oregon Aviation Hall of Fame 2006; more than 12,000 flight hours

Records en primeurs

• Most numerous of all homebuilt aircraft series, with about 10,600 completed by November 2019
• RV-3 won Best Aerodynamic Detailing at the 1972 EAA convention
• 10,000th completed RV, an RV-7, flown in December 2017