I’ve looked at ceiling storage, but I have some beams and soffits from HVAC that make it a bit rough. I’ve also smashed the ceiling with brooms, stiffeners, and angles frequently and thought, “glad that was just unfinished drywall.” I think they’re going to have to move soon though…

I think you’re probably right. Some bad judgment calls, and cascading issues-some as a result. I think they want to do right and get this thing back up. I think it was previously out of their capability. I think they have the tools in place to do it now. Some outside help would have been exponentially more effective 6-12 months ago, maybe. Again, I don’t have it all laid out in front of me and if I did I’d surely be scratching my head too!

Van's is no longer in charge. The bankruptcy is. And, no one should expect fairness from a court run, legal process. Some builders will be chewed up & spit out losing many $10ks. Others will be happy to pay a few thousand more.

@@engineeringoyster6243 You may be right. I am hopeful for the builders that they can complete their planes, not go broke and be able to have company support. Vans is probably the best of the kit companies and if they can’t make it no one can. General aviation for the average guy will be dead.

​@@TheRotorhoundGA for the average joe has been dead for decades

Building an airplane is a long commitment-I’ve found. 😅 Giving this whole mess 3-6 months will provide quite a bit of room to play out and help you form a decision. I have to give credit where it’s due: the kit is a hell of a kit and an incredible project. The plane is an impressive machine. Let’s just hope they can keep making them.

@@RyanFlysPDX Home building airplanes is a life style choice. That in the end, takes all the money you have.

I feel you man, and I’m sorry to hear that your plan isn’t moving forward now. I’ll now be about $30k deeper than expected by the time I’m done after this latest news. Im going to keep pushing, but many more setbacks and I, too, might have to start weighing costs critically and assessing the overall feasibility of the project. So yeah, I feel you for sure.

@RyanFlysPDX OH man, that's exactly how much deeper I felt I was, but with this new info, it seems like it's closing in on $40k.

I'm in the same boat with my RV-8. When I originally started to get serious about building, engines were mid to low 20s. Everything has just gone up so much in price it's becoming more of a stressful financial situation with building than enjoyable.

You’re absolutely right though. FWF can be assembled outside of Van’s. Once I get the finishing kit the only person to blame if this doesn’t get done is me!

Totally, and even a lot of the finishing kit can be duplicated if the worst happens (chapter 7). One question I have with regard to LCP. I doubt I'm the first to think of this but has anyone considered what parts could be drilled upsize and the next rivet size up used? I would think that would clear the crappy hole shop and should be large enough to remove the edge hardening from the laser? Obviously it would depend on all the normal limitations and what had been done to the part to date but it might make some parts usable at least. @@RyanFlysPDX

Yes! Many folks have considered, and in some instances done, exactly that. And as you noted, it’s subject to the normal considerations-the most limiting one being edge distance. That’ll prevent this from being a viable option on many, but not all parts. The other consideration is having that many #4 rivets to set in tight areas, and in skins. The effort on a #4 versus #3 is considerable. There’s probably other limitations I’m forgetting, but it is an option for some parts. For mine, not so much. Edge distance will get me just about every time.

It may come to that. I’ll tell guests it’s modern art. I’m going to hold out until it’s not realistic. I like the garage. Right price, right commute.

Thanks. A lot of people are in that same situation. Hopefully only the airframes are seeing significant increases this time around. At roughly 1/3 of the cost of a finished plane, it winds up being a 10%-15% increase on the finished project. Still tough to swallow, but want to throw out some perspective. Hopefully you can still find space in your budget for an incredible project!

See I kept hearing these timelines attached to Thunderbolt builds and thought, “well that was forewarned.” Then I started hearing more about standard experimental orders and thought, “oh nuts.” I’ll need an engine sooner than 12 months. Hopefully Lycoming, if not the source of the delays, can open up alternative means of delivering product.

To expand on this: The court order allows Van’s to fill orders based on revenue generated, allows them set new contract terms, and allows them to dictate timing of shipments. There’s wide latitude provided. I was hopeful that the deposit account separation would also contain final payments until satisfactory shipments were made on the account. However, all funds become part of the operational expense as soon as the order is in progress, removing the carrot from the end of the stick. In my opinion, this leaves nothing but lack of floor space as a motivating factor to complete and ship kits. It also places the ball entirely in their court with approach to backordered items. We’ve seen some questionable decision making in this precise are over the last 6 months. Nothing in the order prevents that from continuing. Hopefully the consultants stepping and remediate this area of fulfillment.

@@RyanFlysPDX Given the exposure of most builders to significant loss if their deposits are not honored, i think that all builders should strive to take delivery of everything they expect to purchase from Van's & pay the required monthly expense to put the parts in storage if necessary.

The beauty of bankruptcy court is that all the procedures are codified with U.S. statutes. What statute says that customers with deposits are "junior" creditors, or are you just shooting from the hip.

This is good feedback. I do appreciate the ability to head downstairs and put in an hour here or there. Many have cautioned that moving to a hanger too soon is a common mistake. Good to hear that advice comes with exceptions.

he discarded all proven manufacturing methods and grabbed the cash. laser cut aluminum will fracture 100% when formed. this is common knowlege in fabrication. in fact Trumpf, who supplied cnc punchs to vans and also produce amazing lasers, will explain this in one minute if you were to call them right now. this will go down as one of the most evil or the most incompetent moves in manufacturing history. the bogus report showing that cracked parts on an airframe are ok would support evil.

Yeah, but the amount of work to mate that to the RV-7 is well beyond my desire. FWF the geometry of everything changes with that engine. That’s a new mount, cowl, and realistically everything else… So far on this build I’ve learned an important lesson: the time required to make even minor adjustments is unfathomable. I’d estimate, for someone with my meager skills in this stuff, it would add a year to the build to make a change that sweeping.

Lockwood Aviation might have a Rotax 916 kit available soon with all the parts needed. Phil had a flying plane with a 915iS at OSH last summer. The performance estimates are quite interesting.

I saw that, and it is indeed interesting. And it doesn’t look half bad!

Yes, though I’m rather fortunate. I have a few must-replace parts that will take some work, but not impossible. I emerged relatively unscathed. Right now I have about 13 parts that will require replacement, but some of those I’m still looking to eliminate. Only about 6 I’ve confirmed to be laser cut, and the remaining I just haven’t been able to confirm one way or the other. I’m going to allow laser cut parts where Van’s engineering team rated them at a blue or green.

I’m sitting on a quote for that engine-in case things head south. Wait… let me try that again. In case things reach a level of disaster not conceived prior to now. Cowl fit, baffles, and really everything FWF has me concerned though. I’ve seen people outline the adjustments required and it seems daunting.

@@RyanFlysPDX Well stated. Well my first choice was a o-540. I done some fab work and have CNC friends.

I’d dig building it. I love wrenching on motors. If I wasn’t building a plane I’d be building a car. You’ve piqued my interest. I’m off to Google now…

They are really great to work with, mine finished out at 195HP, on MoGas. I love that I was able to build it, really understand it in detail. You build it, and then it imeadeately gets put on a test stand and run for 2 hours, where they check it out, tune it in, then it gets shipped to you. Almost beat me back 😊.

So it looks like you travel to them for a build school of sorts? I’m going to send an inquiry for costs.

Yes, Kanlloops BC Canada. Darren will go you configure, ( and they will custom paint it), you show up, and they have all your parts laid out ready to go. And you build 95% of it if you want. You have one of their builders with you the whole time. They explain the next step, demo of needed, and then you do it. Of course, both the builder, and then a 3rd person quality checks eacj step, probably 20 times along the way. 24-30 hours later, you have a completed engine that ready to start, and you have touched, lubed, torqued every bit of it.

I was going to go Thunderbolt, but they no longer have their builder program.

Thank you for the well wishes! It’s safe to say I’m compiling a file on alternatives at this point. Currently, the outlook is pretty grim as all communication on engines appears to be frozen. When it thaws, we’ll see if reaching out to folks like Barret will ultimately yield better, more productive results than a never ending queue for a Lycoming.

Damn...this really sucks. If you call Barrett for customer service, Rhonda Barrett will answer the phone. I know it sounds corny, but they really do treat you like family. Rhonda remembers me and my engine 4 yrs on without having to look me up. I really wish I could tell you they're inexpensive, but......😬

Barrett did my engine, and I couldn't agree more about their customer service (Rhonda) is great .

Well, now I’m cheating because I believe I’ve seen some of the updated kit pricing. For the 14 at least, it appears to be pretty close to the 32% quoted. Many of the most common parts appear to be hit between 50% and 75%.

@@RyanFlysPDX Ouch!

I’d think as a business owner you’d be even more on board with this (albeit roughly gathered) assessment. Let’s take one-just one-aspect of their finances we’ve had a glimpse into: engine deposits. They took customer deposits destined to be paid to an outside vendor (that documents to the court now list as a creditor to the tune of $600k), and spent them elsewhere. That’s a problem. Regardless, I’ll concede here that I only know (probably not even) half the story, and I lack the accounting principles required to run a business of this size. I’m probably not equipped to make such hastily prepared judgments of their situation.

The problem that Van,s has the engineer owner that is up in years and trusted his management team to do the right thing without adequate oversight. Without visionary leader ship to address, the price increase that was necessary to deal with another level of management so that the company can survive. The amount of growth that has occurred at vans is what caused the financial situation. I almost went bankrupt in a similar situation with my business, and I was not as large as vans aircraft@@RyanFlysPDX

The court documents clearly show gross financial mismanagement for some time. It appears the were using a cash accounting method rather than a accrual method where deposits would be listed as liabilities until the kit is delivered. No competent company of this size and with such huge inventory and such far our delivery times would do what they were doing. Accrual accounting is required where average revenues over 3 years exceed $26M. Company higher ups also appeared to be draining off funds (deposit money) for a long time. What were they thinking? LCPs, primer (no effective QC in place) and financial ineptness all contributed to this result. Don't forget that they ignored the LCP issue reported by builders for months and told folks to build on, making matters that much worse. They were also accepting deposits when they knew Chapter 11 was already in the works. Not cool and some of these things will come back to haunt them in the future.

It is sad to see such a good business be destroyed by thieves and liars and the embezzlers almost never get charged with a crime. The weak management not paying attention. This always happens. It’s like a cancer.@@rv6ejguy

I’m fortunate to only have to pay increases on a single kit, and it kills me to hear stories about folks who’ve been hit much harder than me. I think there are very few builders who wouldn’t consider these projects a significant stretch, financially, and these unfortunate but necessary increases are killing some folks! Hopefully you can find the work to offset the costs!

Mostly in jest, and I think they’re above making some pissant’s life unpleasant because he was critical in tiny little video. Anywho-I have faith that the folks at Van’s and the turn-around experts all want out of this as soon as possible.

@@RyanFlysPDX Oh sure. I understand. But still, if some court hired manager thinks your videos are costing them a few builders monthly, there are plenty of ways they can reduce the negative impact of your videos.

It’s hard to maintain respect when a business’s actions involve misappropriating customer’s funds. I draw a pretty firm line on that one, and Van’s seems to supply no shortage of examples. It’s an easier position to take from the comfort of my vantage point than in the thick of it, and I’m sure the situation surrounding these decisions was far more complicated than I outline. But that’s why you stop and ask for help. I’m hopeful with the guidance and time offered by Chapter 11 they can make right by their current commitments and those made moving forward.

I’m not sure to which parts you’re referring. The only thing overseas I’m familiar with is their QuickBuild process, which still utilizes the parts produced here-either by them or the laser cut facility, which has now ceased. We can agree that it is not over for sure.