How many kits/planes are sold?

Just reading a thread about someone waiting a long time to receive their finishing kit
brought a question to my mind...

how many total "aircraft" does Van's produce and ship in a given time? (per week, month, or year)

Just trying to wrap my head around the lead times and the production capacity of van's and their suppliers.....

There have been about 8000 kits completed in the 21 years since I finished my -6. That’s almost 400 complete kits a year and the business has grown over time. I’d guess they are at 600 complete kits a year.

Kyle Boatright said:

There have been about 8000 kits completed in the 21 years since I finished my -6. That’s almost 400 complete kits a year and the business has grown over time. I’d guess they are at 600 complete kits a year.

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Overall average kits completed per year 443 for all models - based on the collection of the periodic reports from Vans courtesy of the Wayback Machine. Actually, it is more steady than I originally thought. It must be based on the general human population willing and eager to build an airplane. The economy must have an effect too.

'16, '17, '19, & '21 were way down from the average. There was consistent growth up to 2014, then more variation.

Factor in the % of kits that don't get completed. Vans kits have a better % completion ratio than most other brands. Thats the reason kit manufactures will never boast about sales numbers, completions are what they probably mostly base success on.

From this article published yesterday:

https://www.flyingmag.com/vans-rv-12is-slsa-they-build-it-you-fly-it

RV8JD said:

From this article published yesterday:

https://www.flyingmag.com/vans-rv-12is-slsa-they-build-it-you-fly-it

"Van’s Aircraft has perfected the process of designing, manufacturing, and shipping airplane kits for its RV line of E/AB models. Hughes says the Van’s parts picking and crate packing teams ship between 65 and 80 “sub-kits” each week all over the world. “An RV-7 has four sub-kits for the wings, empennage, fuselage, and finishing. So 80 sub-kits in theory represent about 20 airplanes. Just to give you some historical reference, we were shipping half that amount just a year ago,” he said."​

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That implies 800-1000 complete kits a year. That may be their theoretical capacity, but I'm not sure they are actually pushing that much hardware out the door.

Kyle Boatright said:

That implies 800-1000 complete kits a year. That may be their theoretical capacity, but I'm not sure they are actually pushing that much hardware out the door.

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Won’t know for a few years until this year’s kits get completed. As they said, they were doing half that (400-500) kits just last year.