If vans is bringing on 600 a year, that is almost equal to all the single engine piston production combined by those you list.
The LSA may actually be the savior.

"If"?

What are you saying?

All I know is a RV 8 or 14 would make a great second plane to add to my 58. Would be 1/4 the fuel burn flying formation and when I'm solo. Then still have the all weather family hauler.

I sat in a 14 at OSH and wow it had a ton of room.

"If"?

What are you saying?

It seems to me you are saying that Vans is delivering 600 planes a year.

Vans is selling more than 600 a year. There are 600 a year being finished and making their first flight. Over 8,000 flying now (minus a few mishaps).

There are some eventual maintenance items coming down the line for the buyers of RV's that will be interesting to see how they tackle them. A cracked canopy for example. Without question the canopies are the hardest part of the build and I just can't see a buyer taking this on without a lot of help and paying to have it done will include a lot of man hours. By the time a builder gets to this point he has a couple of years of fabricating and the like under his belt, but it is still extremely challenging to do. The windscreen is cut from a single canopy piece and close to 100 percent of builders glass them in so a lot of demo has to take place in order to replace one. So there is a lot of cutting, and getting the new windscreen to match the one coming out so that the angles match the canopy and it still looks like one piece when closed. If there is an expensive or custom paint job it will be expensive to fix or have the plane re painted. I was more scared of having to destroy the work I put into my RV to change a windscreen than anything else on the plane. I never see buyers of flying RV's bragging that they can change their own windscreen when the need arises, but the arcade games and the like that you can have in in the panels is a big lure. Of my RV friends I know three that have taken a bird strike and had to replace their windscreens.

The avionics choices are an enticing part of owning experimental, but if you've never worked under the panel of a completed a RV let me tell you that it is hell. Between the fuel selectors location and the control sticks it is nearly impossible to work under there. I did avionics for a long time and if you brought me your RV for an upgrade I would have declined the work. Torturing your body in this way is a labor of love that a person will do for himself, but I just can't see anybody willing to do this in trade for money on somebody else's plane. It is absolute misery. As dumb as this sounds I'd almost rather build from scratch than retrofit an RV panel. If I did have ideas on keeping an RV current with the latest gizmos I would consider only a tilt canopy.

There are other things, but I think the concept is coming across. While the benefits are great in RV ownership being the builder truly makes it more sustainable. This is my two cents on buying a flying RV. YMMV

Wow. I didn't know that. That's 50 a month. Almost unbelievable.

Damn you people and this E-AB talk. I just went to Van's website and now I can't get my mind back to work.

Wow. I didn't know that. That's 50 a month. Almost unbelievable.

Bryan,

Not sure about the Vans, but the Glasair is fairly straight forward on the avionics. I am doing a complete retro of the avionics including all new panels and autopilot installation for 80 hours of labor. Will have about $25k in an all new panel and autopilot that would be about $100k in a Bonanza and not have as many features.

50 pilots a month decide they want to build and fly a homebuilt? That means there must be at least 50 new pilots being made a month. There's no way this is "old guys".

Here is my 0.02 on saving aviation. All those reasons you guys list are completely meaning less.

- High training cost? Go and see what golf lessons cost.
- High airplane cost? Go out and see what people are spending on boats, RVs or off road trucks. And they fly off the shelves.

In my opinion there are two reasons that cause people to stop flying and quit:
- no reason to fly, other than boring holes in the sky. There are very few places and events where flying into would give the average Joe advantage over driving there. You land at the airport 5 miles from the place you actually want to go, you have to arrange ground transportation back and forth wasting time and money. And in the end you are left wishing you just spend those additional 20 minutes (or even 1h) in the car and drove there for all the convenience you get from having your own car with you. After one or two of those the average Joe stops proposing flying to his wife and kids and soon is reduced to flying on Saturday mornings with his BT buddies to a neighbor airport to spend some time bitching about nothing. Soon he realizes he can do the same at his own airport without spending money on gas.
- realization of the risk. Flying can kill you in a hurry. If you don't play golf for a year and then go out with your buddies the worst you risk is that they laugh at you. If you haven't boat for 5 years and go and do it, as long as you put your jacket on the worst you risk is some people laughing at you and maybe getting wet. But if you haven't flown for 23 months and go to the airport and fire up your airplane, the risk of killing yourself right there is very real. So that $100 hamburger quickly turns into $500 hamburger if you haven't flown for 6 months and need some training. You need to spend a lot of time and money just to stay alive in this game.

And many people add two and two together and quit. Many times before they get there.

There will always be a few Lucs and Jasons that will fly GA and will fly a lot. But in general the GA is going to be more and more niche activity I'm affraid.

50 pilots a month decide they want to build and fly a homebuilt? That means there must be at least 50 new pilots being made a month. There's no way this is "old guys".