As I recall, the original VAF was a series of Yahoogroups (I was a moderator on his 7/7A group and, in fact, was the most active approver/rejector at the time. Thank you very much.
). Now I can't recall for sure but uthis was a splinter from the RV List at the time. The RV List is, ummmm, ummmmm, ummmmm, oh gosh, ummmmm. Well, let me just say Doug's Yahoogroups were a welcome respite from the signal to noise ratio at the time.
At the same time, Doug had set up a Web site for building information and such, I THINK as he was building Flash, although I don't think it was ever a builder's site per se, was it Doug?
The key to VAF was getting the software, I think, for the community groups and then marrying the Web site and the community in one spot. It was a brilliant move, especially since the new format allowed for almost 100% signal. Even on the Yahoogroup we had the occasional flame war.
But what made it different from the RV List is that Doug believed (and appropriately so) in moderation to keep things tightly focused on RVs and I believe this is singularly responsible for the value of VAF, as the "community" pretty much can stay away from those issues (usually unrelated to RV building) that will split it in half, or thirds, or quarters and accomplish nothing.
I gather the reference to the various wings was a question about whether the wings are a subset of VAF and, no, they're not. In fact, the home wing of Van's Air Force was a group of builders up in Oregon/Washington. Eventually, they merged with EAA Chapter 105 but still refer to themselves as the "Home Wing."
The "wing" I'm most familiar with is the Minnesota Wing, and now that I think of it, I'm not really sure how it stated, although as long as I can remember, Doug Weiler has been the head of it. He spent, I think, 12 years building his RV-4 (incidentally, he's taking on a new project which he details in this quarter's newsletter).
Anyway, it's quite a success story.
The one element of it that is still missing, imho, is Van's tech support. If you pay attention to the occasional shots against "the Internet" (as if it's a "thing"), you can tell they got burned in the past... I think on the RV List. But, you know, that was a long time ago and I wish they'd have a tech support section here. Bruce Reynolds, I think, occasionally posts here. And I presume it would take staff time but to me that's the final link in the puzzle.
I also think a weekly podcast would be excellent. I'll have to talk to Doug about that one of these days.
Oh, and then the VAF Television Network.
History of VAF
) I did not notice the "Donate" page for a long time and may have read about it in the forums before seeing it, now that I think about it. (It's small) Doug simply askes that if you use the site every day and enjoy it, send a 25 dollar donation in. (It goes in his kids college fund) Other site generated funds (advertisements) are his livelyhood. He recently quit his day job and does this site full time!!
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