Gary, I couldn't agree with you more. There is only one answer to your question -sorry Van's, hate to be critical, but from my point of view, here it is.
Van's doesn't care.
They know that we can figure it out eventually.
I have to assume that their drawings are done electronically - even if they are not, and I was the boss of the drafter that does the work, then he/she would be fired. Since that hasn't happened then I think that Van's doesn't care - too simple.
Whenever this comes up, someone from Van's answers here in defense of their current practice. It's always an argument that defends 1920 era policy. Too bad.
Ed,
I guess I'm the guy you are probably talking about...
I have never been defending 1920's policy (I don't think anything from that time period relates to what was done in the RV-12 drawings) and I am not here to so so again. I believe all I have ever done is explain the process.
I think it is unfair to state that because Van's doesn't implement a change that some people wanted, that it means they don't care.
Ask any of the early RV-12 builders... I think they will tell you that a
lot of things changed as a result of feedback from builders and potential builders.
The plans revision format was a business decision. It is not one that everyone has liked, but operating a business is 10s of thousands of little decisions, and not all of them will be liked.
Having said that, it is my understanding that the revision process is going to itself be revised. Believe me, this was not an easy decision because it will involve a lot more than just a few seconds of work before a page gets published on the web site. Once it happens it likely wont have much impact because the design is now pretty mature and there aren't much in the way of revisions happening anymore, other than the landing gear change, and engineering was so buried trying to get that out as fast as possible there was no way a process change as significant as the revision system change could be done at the same time. When will this happen? I don't know.
Marty pretty much described the way the current process is intended to work.
If a page you have already completed gets revised, but no notice to builders is sent out, then you can ignore it if you have already built past that point (it was most likely a correction for a typo, less than clear instructions, etc, and if you were able to build past with out the info, then you don't need it).
In the case of a revised page that a builder has not yet completed, then they should use the new page (take advantage of what ever correction were made... it shouldn't matter whether they know what the change was).
Probably the biggest issue with the process is when physical changes were made and builders were instructed to use the new drawings (even if they had already competed the steps) to implement the change. I think this is what most of the complaints have resulted from. The builder had no way to know what had been changed without spending time comparing the old drawing with the new. Now that revisions have become rather rare, I think this is a much smaller problem, but it will be totally resolved when the process is eventually changed.
