16 | December 2017 | Powered Sport Flying Light Sport Aircraft Van’s Aircraft’s immensely Popular RV-Series can be found all over the world, like this RV7 with British registry Major Benchmarks for Manufacturers Serving the Light Aircraft Community Recently, a couple of major benchmarks were reached by some of our important brand names. These notable achievements deserve mention given their relationship to the lsa and light aircraft sector that I serve. One is an airframe builder and the other is an avionics giant. According to a recent report in General Aviation News, “[When] David Porter took his first flight in his RV-7 on Nov. 24, 2017, he probably didn’ t know he was making history. The Martinsburg, West Virginia pilot ’s kit-built airplane became the official 10,000th Van’s RV-series aircraft.” Van’s labeled David’s first flight as “official” because more than 10,000 RV-series kit aircraft are definitely known to be flying, but the company recognizes that it may not know about all of them. President of his local eaa Chapter (# 1071), David spent three and a half years building his RV-7 from a standard kit. It’s the first airplane he has built. His airplane was RV-7 #1,662 to fly, according to the Oregon company. Dick van Grunsven’s Van’s Aircraft began selling RV-3 plans back in 1973. From this modest start the company now calculates that over the last 44 years a new RV has taken to the air every 1.6 days on average. Now, that is one impressive achievement, I believe. “No one is exactly sure when the 1,000th RV flew— our best guess is around early 1994,” company officials said in a prepared release. “The 2,000 mark was passed in November 1998, 19 years ago. The increase from 9,000 flying RVs to 10,000 took just 33 months or under 1,000 days.” Therefore, “About one new RV airplane leaves the ground each day, with 360 taking to the skies already in 2017.” Great job, Team Van’s! Garmin’s One Millionth “We’re celebrating the delivery of our one-millionth certified avionics product from our manufacturing facility in Olathe, Kansas,” announced the popular avionics producer. This large number does not include the huge number of sports or auto products and more made by Garmin over its three-decade history. The milestone product was a gtx 3000 di-260b compliant Mode S Extended Squitter (ES) transponder, which enables ads-b Out transmissions, a timely offering given the last two years of push to fit GA aircraft with ads-b Out before the 2020 faa deadline. “Since our inception over 28 years ago, Garmin has been committed to providing superior products that are known for their innovation, reliability and intuitive design,” said Phil Straub, Garmin Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Aviation. “This milestone is a testament to our long-established commitment to making significant investments in research and development, as well as the hard work and dedication of thousands of passionate Garmin team members that I have the pleasure of working with every day.” “As we celebrate this exciting accomplishment, I am very proud of how our teams have managed such significant growth, while maintaining the culture of our company as our founders set forth,” said Carl Wolf, vice president of aviation marketing and sales. “The breadth and depth of our certified aviation David Porter with his Van’s RV7. Image courtesy of General Aviation News.
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