Van's RV-15 too little, too late?

There is a lifecycle in owner-run businesses. The dynamic founder gets old and steps back, and the business becomes professionally managed - which means cumbersome, with slow decision making. Such a fate may have befallen the iconic Vans Aircraft.

- GUY LEITCH

OVER THE PAST 15 YEARS the recreational aviation fraternity has been moving away from fast tricky composite pocket rockets to good old-fashioned aluminium high wing STOL taildraggers, for 'backcountry' flying.

Yet Vans soldiered on, making fast low-wing planes with evolutionary rather than revolutionary designs coming at an ever-slower rate. Thus, the RV-14 was not much more than a 120% version of the RV-7. Vans' fans were clamouring for a high-wing bush plane - and it just was not coming.

The other manufactures were rubbing their hands together in glee - most notably Rans - whose S-21 was the plane Van's fliers had hoped the next RV would be. At the bottom of the African continent, the Sling boys finally got on with the job of designing and building their much-awaited High Wing and as can be seen from our feature on their epic Oshkosh adventure - they have come up with yet another winner.

The years went by - and still nothing from Vans. Finally, in early 2021, Vans admitted to having a taildragger in design. And that was it. Then, a month before Oshkosh this year, pictures were leaked of the RV-15 flying. The long wait was over.

The question is - has it been worth it - will the legions of Vans fans be happy?

In a revealing interview with the UK Flyer magazine at Oshkosh this year, Van's President and CTO Rian Johnson admitted Richard Van Grunsven had been talking about a high wing since 2002. However, the growth of the RV business had taken up so much engineering capacity that it left none for new product development.

Johnson said that over the past two years he had assembled a great engineering team. "They finally had the opportunity to design and build the airplane that we have been thinking about for quite some time. Over the past 10 years the design has now fully come together."