Some of you may be surprised to see a tenth issue of KITPLANES come to you at the end of 2024. After planning to produce nine this year—the same as many of the other aviation titles in the Firecrown stable—it made sense to squeeze off this special issue that contains our annual kit- and plansbuilt aircraft buyer’s guide. Yes, we’ve done the guide, it seems, since Johannes Gutenberg started playing with movable type in about 1440. I admit that may be an exaggeration.
Nevertheless, here we are, looking ahead to the aircraft kits and plans—for airplanes and rotorcraft—available for 2025. As ever, our guide stems from years of work behind the scenes to gather and update critical and often hard-to-find information. Every summer, we contact each manufacturer for updates—what are you selling now, any changes in the lineups, how about prices and availability? The results are put into our online database, which is actually updated throughout the year as we get new information, then extracted in late October for this print edition. As such, it is a snapshot in time. Information coming in after our print deadline is put back into the online database.
We’ve separated our guide into designs available now, preceded by a short listing of those aircraft still in development as of our data deadline. They include a few designs that have been gestating for some time—someday, somehow the Sherpa K650T will be done!—but a few that are closer to ready, including the Comp Air 6.2, Hummel Realta, Saurenman REVO, ScaleBirds P-36 (which we’ve actually flown!) and Sonex’s High Wing and two-seat SubSonex JSX-2T. On that note, there has been notable activity around the High Wing. Sonex had the fuselage of the prototype ready for AirVenture last summer and word is that progress continues toward a flight-test article for early 2025. I’ve heard a lot less about the jet.
So…the RV-15?
I feel like it’s some kind of checklist item, like “set takeoff trim,” that I have to talk about the upcoming Van’s RV-15 this time every year. It is, after all, a highly anticipated airplane generally and an important model for the company, opening as it does a new category for Van’s. Not only would the RV-15 allow the company to compete in the still-strong backcountry/STOL category but it would make a credible entry in the MOSAIC category as a production aircraft. Indeed, much of what Van’s has considered during the 15’s development is how it would fit into the MOSAIC mold once that category has been blessed by the FAA next year.
But it has not been an easy road for the development team, negotiating Van’s bankruptcy troubles as well as seeking both an understanding of and a remedy for the laser-cut parts issue. The company has made big progress on both fronts—the grinding of the gears down in Aurora is no longer audible from my perch less than 10 miles to the northwest.
So here’s the RV-15 update as I know it. Late in 2024, the team made significant progress by abandoning the stabilator tail and grafting on a slightly widened conventional horizontal stabilizer and elevator from the RV-10. At the outset, the stabilator seemed a reasonable avenue to explore considering that Van’s had success with the RV-12 and that such a vaunted STOL airplane as the Helio Courier used a stabilator. Certainly the 64-year history of the Piper Cherokee suggests it’s not merely a design outlier.
Rather than continue to tweak a design aspect that Van’s pilots just couldn’t get happy with, they went back to their roots with a conventional tail. This is important. It’s better to admit that your first solution isn’t going to cut it and move on to a better solution than dig your heels in or compromise the final design for ego.
Design engineers also made changes to the roll-control system, moved the flap lever from the ceiling to the floor and shortened the wingspan by about 2 feet, leaving 161 square feet of constant-chord wing. No functional changes have been made to the landing gear.
The plan near the end of 2024 was to iterate a bit more by trying a slightly longer tailcone and an elevator with a bit more chord. There are also supposedly changes coming for the rudder to fine-tune control effort and responsiveness. Van’s design staff feels the handling is getting really close, which would let them lock down some key components and begin tooling up for production. They hope to have learned enough by the end of the year to really benefit the next iteration.
That iteration will be an entirely new airplane. As has long been planned, the fuselage will be significantly different, with the engine moving down and forward, the wing aft and the windshield becoming more steeply raked. Testing on the first example with a longer tailcone will help determine if the second prototype will have more distance between the wing and the tail as well. Van’s will also change the doors and for sure have fuel in the wings.
There’s still a lot of work to be done but Van’s really, really wants to be selling RV-15 kit components in 2025.
And About Glasair Aviation
Controversially pulling out of the U.S. market and moving all manufacturing assets to China, Glasair Aviation is looking to develop “regional partners” in the U.S. to act as build centers and, eventually, become repair stations should a production version of the Sportsman appear under the upcoming MOSAIC rules. Those processes are ongoing and there is still some support for the aircraft (mostly the Sportsman) from the remnants of the U.S. company, so for now we’re calling the Sportsman kit in production.
An unabashedly realistic view is that it will be some time before Chinese-made Sportsman kits and components reach our shores, but the activity implies progress, which means there’s still some hope for those who might someday want to build their own Sportsman.
Garmin Oops
In our EFIS roundup last month, I said the Garmin G3X Touch system does not support multiple ADAHRS units. That is, obviously, incorrect. The system does support parallel units for redundancy. Insert facepalm emoji here.
