What's next from Van's?

[EXTAAFLY]

New Single Seater please. Modern kit.

Use a common empennage and wing, 7/8, Common Fuselage with the 8 with old school landing gear/motor mount. Maybe with a power range from 0-200 to IO360

Fastback and Tip Over.

That's just me and what I'd like to see someday sitting next to the 14. Probably going to have to take what I learn with the -14 and go "old school" with the -3, learn a little more. Or a lot more

Fast Glass company's are struggling while Van's plugs along racking up first flights. I think a faster, more complex airplane would probably go somewhat against the "total performance" philosophy.

[Mudfly]

I'm no expert in the field of fuels for piston airplanes, but it is my understanding that the future of 100LL is limited. Believe me, I hope they figure out a viable replacement because soon I will be spending several thousand $$ for a brand new lycoming for my 14 project. Lets hope this bandaid/novelty fuel will be readily available and not cost an arm and a leg.
With all that said, and back to the original post, how about an RV designed for either the heavier diesel or the much smaller/lighter turbine engines. My vote would be for the turbine. Not necessarily for the speed and power, but more for simplicity and reliably. While there's no small turbines that fit the bill at this time, there are a few companies that seem to be getting their foot in the door. My guess would be that military drones might help with the development/testing of some type of small engine that might carry over to light aircraft.
Again, I hope gas piston engines will be around for a long time, but it's nice to have a plan B.

[Bob Kuykendall]

How about an ELSA amphib equivalent to the Icon A5? They could leverage most of the RV-12 wing, use their matched-hole construction for the rest of the airframe, and maybe a fiberglass or carbon fiber hull. They could use the same motor as the RV-12 and a lot of the FWF parts. With a total kit price of ~$75k they could totally eat Icon's lunch in the sport amphib sector.

[Phil]

I hope it's something dramatically different than the traditional Vans line. Putting bigger engines in, keeping the same fuse with different wings, etc... Those are all neat but not much more to me.

I do know that if Lancair was still producing IV-P Prop-Jet kits, I'd be looking at it pretty hard.

Something about 330 kts and being above the wx.... That's a cool mission profile.

[DougCronkhite]

Cool mission profile, but painful on the bank accounts..

[Pat Stewart]

A J3 Cub kit will do just fine.

[PilotjohnS]

How about a 2 place jet? If Jim Bede could do a single seater jet decades ago.....p

[Canadian_JOY]

As a Glasair Sportsman builder I'll go with ArlingtonRV's viewpoint. We looked hard at the RV's (my wife fell in love with my hangar-mate's 8A) but in the end there just wasn't enough utility in the RV's for us. The baggage space in the 8A is what killed that idea.

At the moment Vans doesn't have any true utility aircraft in their design stable. I suspect there's a fairly large crowd of Cessna owners who would like a little faster Cessna without the cost.

[elev666]

Years ago , before the RV 10 was anounced , I cornered Dick and asked him if he could built a 4 place , fixed gear Siai Marchetiti , he simpli looked at me and grinned , ,,,,,,do Porsches not have back seats ?

[vernon smith]

An observation from someone whose last logbook entry until a month ago was 1967. Back in the dark ages almost NOBODY filed an IFR flight plan with a single engine airplane. Today it is obviously a different story. I don't know if aviators are simple braver or the general consensus is engines are more reliable.

If it's the latter I would disagree, the vast majority of improvements in piston driven aircraft engines have mirrored the advances in computer control systems. Rings, bearings, cams, valves, push rods have improved maybe five percent in forty years.

I think Van's should look at doing a twin, with both the 360 and the 540 Lycoming engine options and a retractable landing gear option. Being a machinist and a manufacturer you do not want folks making retractable landing gear components in their garages so the optional retract kit would have to include the gear legs and retraction mechanism ready to install. Plumbing the hydraulics would be no worse than the current liquid systems in the planes.

Another interesting possibility is modifying/strengthening one of the current models for a FJ33 Williams turbine