Van's Aircraft and the Chapter Eleven: What the RV Line's Recovery Means for Experimental Aviation

The most successful homebuilt aircraft manufacturer in history nearly didn’t survive. Van’s Aircraft, maker of the RV line that accounts for more than 11,000 completed and registered aircraft worldwide, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2023 and emerged as a going concern after a reorganization that left some deposit holders with reduced settlements and stretched timelines for everyone. The company is now shipping kits and fulfilling orders.

How Van’s Aircraft Went from Dominant to Bankrupt

Richard VanGrunsven began building aircraft in Oregon in the early 1970s, starting with a modified Stits Playboy and drawing the plans himself when commercial sources couldn’t provide them. That same instinct became the foundation of Van’s Aircraft, headquartered in Aurora, Oregon, which grew into the dominant force in experimental kit aviation over five decades.

The EAA census data puts the scale of the company’s influence in concrete terms. The RV-7 and RV-9 are consistently listed as the most popular homebuilt designs in the United States. The RV-12 opened the line to Light Sport. The RV-14 gave cross-country pilots a capable airplane that cruises well over 200 miles per hour and can operate from turf strips.

Van’s wasn’t just selling kits. It was sustaining a culture of builders.

The Pandemic Surge That Set the Stage for Crisis

During the pandemic years, Van’s received an extraordinary surge in kit orders. People working from home with accumulated savings took the leap on build projects they’d deferred for years. Van’s took the deposits and tried to ramp production to meet demand.

Two problems emerged simultaneously. Material costs increased sharply with inflation, eroding margins built into existing kit pricing. More damaging was a manufacturing quality issue with laser-cut parts: components produced through Van’s transition to laser cutting developed hairline cracks around lightening holes when flexed during assembly or flight. The issue wasn’t universal, but it triggered a service bulletin and a replacement program for affected parts.

That replacement program consumed cash Van’s didn’t have in reserve, compounding both the inflation-driven cost increases and an existing fulfillment backlog.

By the time the Chapter 11 petition landed in federal court, Van’s held outstanding deposits from hundreds of kit buyers, some of whom had paid in full for kits not yet delivered. In a bankruptcy proceeding, those customers were unsecured creditors - last in line in a liquidation scenario.

The EAA’s Response and What the Reorganization Produced

The EAA engaged immediately and publicly, working to ensure kit buyers understood their legal rights, connecting members with resources, and making the case that keeping Van’s operational mattered beyond the pending orders. The tens of thousands of RV aircraft already flying depend on manufacturer support for parts and documentation.

The reorganization was not painless. Some deposit holders received reduced settlements. Fulfillment timelines extended well beyond original expectations. But Van’s survived, production restarted, and customer support remained operational.

What This Means If You’re an RV Owner, Active Builder, or Prospective Buyer

If you’re flying an RV now: Nothing about the bankruptcy changes your airworthiness situation. Experimental amateur-built aircraft operate under FAR Part 91. Your experimental certificate is tied to the aircraft’s build logbook and your maintenance program. The original manufacturer is not required to remain in business for your airplane to stay legal. Airworthiness depends on your condition inspection and maintenance records, not Van’s corporate status.

If you’re mid-build waiting on components: Contact Van’s customer support directly. Response is slower than in the pre-bankruptcy period, but the company is fulfilling orders and shipping parts.

If you’re considering a new RV build: Van’s is accepting orders. Talk to current builders, check the EAA forums, and understand exactly what you’re committing to before writing a deposit check.

The Broader Lesson: Financial Risk in the Experimental Kit Market

The experimental aircraft category exists because Congress and the FAA agreed that allowing people to build aircraft outside the normal type-certification system produces a public benefit. The tradeoff is that the regulatory protections governing a production Cessna or Piper don’t apply the same way to kit manufacturers. There is no escrow requirement for builder deposits. There is no government-backed warranty program. There is no secondary certification oversight holding manufacturers to a production standard.

The EAA has long argued that the community itself - through programs like the EAA Technical Counselor network and peer review of builds - provides meaningful safety oversight, and the accident data largely supports that argument.

But the Van’s Chapter 11 was a reminder that community trust is not a substitute for financial due diligence. Before writing a five-figure check to any kit manufacturer, understand who you’re writing it to and what happens to your deposit if delivery fails.

FAA Summer Safety Campaign: The Three Patterns Behind Summer GA Accidents

July and August are historically the deadliest months in general aviation by accident count. The accident-per-flight-hour rate also climbs during summer, which means conditions - not just increased flight volume - are driving part of the increase.

Three patterns appear repeatedly in NTSB summer accident investigations:

Convective weather. The most common finding isn’t a pilot who flew directly into a storm. It’s a pilot who departed without adequately assessing conditions, or who continued when weather moved faster than forecast. The Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA), which replaced the old Area Forecast in 2017, gives pilots more visual tools for evaluating convective threats. The Aviation Weather Center website is the place to learn it.

Density altitude. This catches pilots at high-elevation airports every summer, but it also catches pilots at sea-level airports on hot days who skip the performance numbers because the runway feels familiar. Performance charts don’t account for familiarity - they account for temperature, pressure altitude, and weight. The accident record includes runway overruns from aircraft that had margin to spare on a standard day and none at all on a summer afternoon.

Go-around decision-making. Summer turbulence, afternoon crosswinds, and thermal activity all contribute to approach instability. The FAA’s guidance is consistent: if you’re not stabilized by 500 feet, go around. The accident reports for pilots who didn’t are not ambiguous.

The FAA Safety Team has online courses running through the end of August at FAASafety.gov that qualify for Wings phase credit and are free.

FAA 2025 Pilot Training Data: A Wider Front Door, the Same Narrow Hallway

The FAA’s 2025 civil airmen statistics show student pilot certificates increased for the fourth consecutive year - more people are entering the training pipeline than at any point in recent memory.

The cautionary note is completion. Somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of student pilots who solo go on to earn a private pilot certificate. That rate hasn’t improved at the same pace as entry numbers, which means the pipeline is wider at the front than at the finish line.

Cost is the primary barrier. The average private pilot certificate now runs $12,000 to $18,000 at most certificated flight schools, and higher depending on location, aircraft type, and training frequency. Any disruption - a job change, a move, a demanding stretch at work - can end training before the certificate is in hand.

Training frequency matters as much as cost. Students who fly three or more times per week complete at substantially higher rates than those flying once every two weeks. Skill and knowledge decay between infrequent lessons is real. When students spend lesson time relearning material from the previous flight instead of building on it, both cost and timeline grow, and motivation tends to follow them out the door.

AOPA and the EAA have both flagged the completion rate as a structural challenge for the future of general aviation. Some Part 141 schools are experimenting with structured completion programs that fix cost, timeline, and instructor assignment upfront to give students a clearer path. Early data from these programs shows higher completion rates - a small dataset, but moving in the right direction.

Check Your EFB: Legacy NOTAM System Retirement Has a Practical Risk

The FAA completed the retirement of its legacy Notice to Air Missions system in 2025 and consolidated to the National Airspace Data Repository. Most electronic flight bag applications updated their data feeds ahead of that transition. Some older devices running older software may be receiving incomplete data without flagging it as such.

The practical risk is in instrument flight. An approach briefing or obstacle summary can appear complete while containing gaps if the data feed is missing entries from the new system. The FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) in June addressing this specifically.

Verify your app version and confirm the developer’s release notes show compatibility with the current FAA system. If your device no longer supports the current application version, account for that in your operations until you can update hardware. Everything will look normal until you need the piece that isn’t there.

Key Takeaways

• Van’s Aircraft survived Chapter 11 filed in November 2023, is shipping kits, and has restarted production - but some deposit holders received reduced settlements and timelines extended across the board.
• RV owners’ airworthiness is unaffected: experimental amateur-built aircraft under FAR Part 91 do not require the original manufacturer to remain in business.
• No regulatory protection exists for kit buyer deposits - financial due diligence before writing a large check is entirely the builder’s responsibility.
• July and August are the deadliest months in general aviation; convective weather assessment, density altitude calculations, and go-around discipline are the three gaps the NTSB finds most often.
• Student pilot starts are up for the fourth consecutive year, but only 15–25% of students who solo earn a private pilot certificate - completion rate, not enrollment, remains the structural problem in the training pipeline.
• Check your EFB software for compatibility with the FAA’s National Airspace Data Repository following the 2025 NOTAM system retirement; the FAA issued a relevant SAIB in June.