World of RVs - "Skunkworks"

Your identity has been verified. Your security level of "top secret" will permit you to take a tour of Van's development facility..."Skunkworks"

Van�s hangar and prototype shop lies between the tall trees on the east end of the Sunset airstrip. When you drive down the pot-holed dead end road and end up in front of a faded pink building with a brown garage door, it sure doesn�t feel like you�re looking at any kind of aircraft development facility. Don�t be deceived. It may look rustic, even crude, but some of the world�s best sport aircraft have emerged from that door.

Many Van�s employees remember when this modest building housed the whole Van�s Aircraft operation. Only eleven years ago, every phase of the business was here: prototyping, production manufacturing, engineering, drafting, crate building, the office (which housed the company�s only computer) and the (singular) bathroom. Today, the engineering and drafting departments occupy offices in the front third of the floor space and the rear two thirds is taken up with prototype building and aircraft maintenance. Go out the back door of the prototype shop and you are standing in the hangar, between Ole Blue (our demonstrator RV-6A), the proof of concept RV-9A, Van�s personal RV-4, an RV-3 and an RV-8A. A rather forlorn RV-5 hangs in the rafters overhead.

Take a brief walk through and check out what�s going on. Ken Krueger is pecking away (literally) at his computer, designing and checking details of the RV-9A fuselage. Rian Johnson is conferring with head engineer Andy Hanna about a wiring harness for the RV-8A. Draftsman Phil Rivall is hunkered over another computer, trying desperately to keep up with all the drawings that people keep asking him for. Back in the prototype shop, a pair of completed RV-9A wings rests in a cradle by the wall, while builder Phil Duyck assembles prototype parts into an RV-9A fuselage skeleton. Scott McDaniels is checking more fuselage parts against drawings and making notes for the Builder�s Manual.

Where�s Van? A quick check out the back door shows that the sailplane is still here, so he didn�t sneak off for the afternoon. He�s in the paint booth, sanding out fiberglass molds for RV-9A empennage tips�. just another day in the life of an aircraft tycoon.