As of last month, 10,000 Van’s RV kit planes have officially made it through the assembly process and into the skies. There are most likely more than 10,000 flying, according to the company, but it doesn’t keep tabs on the progress of all of the many kits that head out of the factory doors, so the number is based on owners and builders who have reported back on their success.
The official 10,000th flying Van’s is an RV-7 owned and built by CFI and EAA Chapter president David Porter of Martinsburg, West Virginia. The plane is the first he’s built and the process took him three and a half years to complete. Porter’s RV is the 4,311th RV-7 empennage kit that Van’s has sold and (officially) the 1,662nd RV-7 to fly. Over the last year, Van’s reports that new RVs have been taking to the air at an average rate of one a day.
Learn more at Van’s Aircraft.