We started the RANS build with a kit order in December 2014. In April 2015 I convinced my friend Chris to help go retrieve the kit from RANS in Hays and bring it back to Iowa. There I got the chance to take my first flight in an S-20. I hadn’t been thinking about building a plane during Oshkosh 2014, so I scoured the internet for information and subscribed to Kitplanes to read the S-20 flight report before making the purchase. I researched other similar kits, but no one seemed to provide the value and honest performance specs as RANS.
Throughout the build I leaned a lot on RANS Tech Help as this was my first project of this kind. From learning how to rivet, removing bad rivets, working with metal, learning how to cover an airplane, how to paint, and all the other little bits that come with an airplane build. In addition to the folks at RANS, I had great help from great friends (Fred and Andy), the guys who blazed the trail ahead of my build (Steve and Glenn), and the most awesome wife a guy could ever find, Maria, who helped the throughout the build and is still hanging around with me after the fact.
The airplane was finally finished in May of 2019 and flew the first weekend of June 2019. The flight was fairly unremarkable from a flight test standpoint, but I was beside myself in blasting off into the sky into the box of parts I got into the air. I couldn’t have found a better airplane to build for the mission I had.
—Ryan Story
Read more on Ryan Story’s website.
