Graham wrote:
A forum is a more civilised place if we conduct ourselves as though the usual in-person rules of restraint and politeness apply, even though they don’t.
Ok, so badmouthing Vans is OK, but taking an objective look at what is actually going on is not. I’m very far from alone in my view on this whole situation, even though I am about the single person here (or so it seems). The victim here is Vans first and foremost, the people working there. Then everybody who has some business relation with them, subcontractors in particular. Lots and lots of people have made a living by producing bits and pieces for Vans. Then the entire GA industry and community.
The laser part situation is bad, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s peanuts and easily fixed by each builder. Worst case scenario being a couple of thousands in new parts. Nothing will disappear however. Vans may go bankrupt, but people will get their stuff eventually. Right now there is no money to do anything there, but there will be, and perhaps sooner than we think.
But, how will Vans look in one year from now? We don’t know. I’m not too optimistic, but perhaps my worries are unfounded, I hope they are. Now matter what happens, kit prices will go up, and they will probably change their current static contract/deposit practice, which is the root cause of all this. The builders will have to take more of the underlying economic risk. This can be done in many ways, the easiest being increasing kit prices even more.
I’m sorry for not joining you in kicking a horse laying on the ground with a broken back 
IMO that is what you are doing, and there is nothing pleasant about it.
@LeSving wrote:
The victim here is Vans first and foremost.
Do we need to remind you that it was Van’s management decisions that led to this? Including not doing anything for almost a year after getting reports of dimple cracks. They only quietly changed chapter 5 to reduce their liability as they continued to produce these parts. You are right, I probably will never get over that. Especially since over that same time period I spent about 1000 hours of build time.
If plans are well known would it be difficult for a machine shop with proper equipment to start manufacturing the sheet metal parts?
The pictures I have seen from the production at Vans is not showing high level automated manufacturing.
This is a company that in 2016 changed from manual stations to fully automatic.
pmh wrote:
If plans are well known would it be difficult for a machine shop with proper equipment to start manufacturing the sheet metal parts?
There are lots of RV-4s and RV-6s that were built from plans, with the kit being instructions for how to build the jigs and the forms and some aluminum sheets, so I’d say yes, this can be done.
My RV6 came with the original build plans and a massive ring binder of build instructions. I’m looking at building new ailerons and have ordered the parts from Vans as they cost little more than buying the raw stock, but you could clearly build the ailerons from that plan.
As for the state of Vans, I’m not a builder so I have no skin in the game. Whilst I can see LeSving’s point about “experimental” aviation, but the reality is that homebuilding in 2023 is not the same as in 1985. Back in the day, it truly was “experimental”. Today, someone selects a Vans kit because they are relatively straightforward to assemble, and the end product has a pretty much guaranteed performance and high resale value. It costs so much to build a new plane and buy a new engine these days that the market no longer exists for aircraft which aren’t worth much when finished.
As a result, Vans customers are expecting a quality kit. We’re not talking about a BD-5 here, or a set of Long-Ez plans. Those days are long gone.
It costs so much to build a new plane and buy a new engine these days that the market no longer exists for aircraft which aren’t worth much when finished.
It’s no more expensive to build a plane now than it ever has been in real terms and the FAA regs (i.e. those in the main market of buyers and builders) are exactly the same. There is no need to buy new engines now any more than one did to build a T-18, and lots of engines are built up from uncertified parts.
The difference relative to the ‘golden age of homebuilding’ (say 1955-1985) is that more people have more money now, and therefore more typically spend it to buy optional convenience and save time. That’s not inconsistent with the view that Vans customer base has a higher quality expectation, but with Vans Aircraft history and product philosophy going back to 1972 they have very successfully been able to keep a foot in both camps: CNC’d skins and unregulated offshore manufactured quick-build kits yes, but serialized parts and detailed QA systems no. The result has been incredibly high performance, easy to build kits bought cheap via innovation in manufacturing and the acceptance of risk. A wonderful thing based on the overall results (12,000 flying) and real world effect (safe planes), but the customers should understand they are buying into a situation with some physical and financial risk even while hoping and expecting to get what they paid for. The question is who is accepting that risk and if the company doesn’t make a lot of money and doesn’t have a lot of assets, the customer is de facto accepting the risk with no FAA regulatory intent to prevent it. Experimental still means experimental and in the US, the place and aeronautical culture that created these planes, they will never be anything but FAA Experimental Category aircraft with designs approved by nobody and quality guaranteed by nobody. Customers do have legitimate expectations but buying an unassembled certified aircraft at a bargain price they are not.
I think it’s a genuinely interesting situation in this regard with legitimate points of view on all sides. The buyer of parts from Vans has a reasonable expectation that they should be useful, although not certified either in design or manufacture. But I certainly hope the bulk of homebuilding won’t be forced by 2023 market demand and expectations into a quasi-factory style manufacturing situation, at high cost and lower volume. I was there watching US homebuilding in 1980, when my dad started his scratch built homebuilt that was completed in 1987. It was a really, really cool and creative scene although quite risky and with no legal changes or prohibitions it continues on in parallel today even while the Tab A into Slot B kits enjoy their own business success and business challenges, as seen here.
Here there is still a big plans built market and there are different rules/certification (I can’t think of the right word here) between experimental, home built and kit built aircraft even though they will all end up under the same register F-P (eventually).
Not talking ULM here. These also can be bought off shelf, kit built, plans built (built from a bought plan, or made up as you go along (experimental).
It would be interesting to see how OSAC when registering a kit built CDNSK treats the change from punched to laser cut parts as most likely the design documents will still detail punched holes.
It may be that unless the Vans design documentation is changed, OSAC will not register them in France.
Interesting point @gallois. CHE treats homebuilts thru our association EAS and those finished get a HB-Yxx registration.
Re LCP (Laser Cut Parts), no differentiation is made if the holes have been drilled, drilled to final size, reamed to final size, punched to final size, or laser cut to final size. But one thing is sure, we will not accept any part having cracks, as seems to happen when dimpling said LCP holes, in a new build.
All Van’s models already have their share of Service Bulletins covering repetitive inspections of some areas, mainly located in the tail, for possible cracks. Building out of aluminum presents many advantages vs other materials such as wood, composite, rag & tube, etc, but one disadvantage is fatigue. Building an aircraft as light, and as strong as possible, presents many challenges, and most if not all aluminum aircraft ever built have seen cracks developing in one part or another during service life.
Dan, what you describe is probably the same with OSAC, but France being very bureaucratic are likely to compare the design documents with the parts and build documents, cross referencing that all is coherent (the word often used here).
So if it says in the design or parts catalogue punched holes then they would have to be punched holes otherwise the design document or the parts specification would have to be rewritten as an amendment to the kit built dossier. This in turn would mean that testing the parts would have to be done by manufacturer/seller/ designer and the result of those tests also entered in the dossier. They would need to meet the same criteria as the original parts.
For anyone who knows France, we have dossiers for everything. If you get a loan from the bank or a mortgage, the dossier can cost more than the interest you pay for the loan.🤔 (maybe I exagerate, but only a bit.)
So in the case of a Vans kit, the dossier would include the original design and parts listed in the kit. Normally after the initial kit has been built,tested and documentation agreed, every kit after that is automatically accepted by OSAC up to the build stage. The builder then records his build stages, perhaps with visits from an OSAC inspector (I don’t remember one ever doing this until the end but I’ve always just been a helper in the building process). It is also often covered within the RSA.
If there is a design change to the kit being built and if the manufacturer doesn’t provide the testing proof then it is up to the kit builder to prove that the aircraft is airworthy.
So in effect it starts out as an experimental again and all flight tests to make the change from F-W to F-P would need to be done by the builder.😬
Thanks for those explanations Gallois.
The French homebuilt system is not too far from the Swiss, German, Austrian, and even the British one. Our country being smaller, our system is slightly simpler. We have one Aerospace Engineer working full time for our association. He also works hand in hand with our NAA as an acceptance authority, deciding on the requirements pertaining to future and existing homebuilt designs.
This, in a nutshell, describes the procedures our association performs:
