RV-15 General Information

The newest model in the Van's Aircraft lineup is the RV-15. There have been many things written about it so far and I will not try to recreate all of that here, but I will link some of that information here.

The original Engineering Prototype shortly after being announced at Oshkosh in July 2022.

As early as 2020 or 2021 it was hinted that Van's was working on a new model, but they would say nothing about it, bot even that they were working on a new model. They did a pretty good job of keeping it a secret because when the airplane showed up at Oshkosh 2022 the public was taken by surprise.

Van's is best known for a line of low wing sport airplanes around the concept of "Total Performance". What they mean by that is that an RV isn't going to be the fastest, but it will cruise fairly fast, some people have even been known to race them at Reno; it is not the slowest, but it will get down pretty slow, making it good for smaller runways, but not gravel bars; it is not the most aerobatic, but it will perform most basic aerobatic maneuvers well in a predictable manner, some people even use them for competition aerobatics; it isn't the most stable IFR platform, but many people fly hard IFR in them; it isn't the best long cross country machine, but it makes for quite enjoyable trips, though with limited baggage in most cases, though they have been flown around the world. It does just about everything well, but there are other designs that will perform better in any given category, but there are very few that are as well rounded and versatile as an RV. Hence, "Total Performance".

Enter the RV-15, not just a clean sheet design using virtually no parts from any other model, but it is also a new type of airplane being a high wing. High wing verses low wing is another one of those endless debates that dates practically from the dawn of aviation and is in the same class as arguments about nose wheel vs. tail wheel, or side-by-side vs. tandem, or Cessna vs. Piper, or stick vs. yoke, or Coke vs. Pepsi. In the long run, it comes down to individual preferences. Like all things aviation, both high wing and low wing have their pros and cons, the trick is to pick the configuration with the most pros and fewest cons for any given operation. Ideally of course, it would be best to have one of every kind of airplane there is, but for most us us mere mortals, that is not obtainable.

I suppose a good place to start is the Kitplanes article that Paul Dye wrote about the development of the RV-15. Due to his position and background he was afforded the opportunity to fly the prototype at several stages during it's development.

Probably a good next step are the series of informational videos that Van's has produced since 2022 (scroll to the bottom of the page). There are also a number of videos on YouTube made by various content creators. Much of the information is duplicated, but there are some differences in them. Lastly, all of the photos that I have so far can be found here. I haven't seen the airplane in person yet, so none of these pictures were taken by me.

Van's had been saying for quite a while that they "hoped" to have the first kits ready for sale by the end of 2025. I figured that meant that they would be available to order in December with shipments in the first quarter of 2026. After not attending Oshkosh in 2024 due to the bankruptcy, they had the RV-15 there this year with the new wing and "almost final" tail. I was hoping for some kind of update about where they were in the design and testing process, but I was in no way prepared for what they did.

The first surprise was that the airplane was painted and vinyl wrapped.

Latest iteration with paint / vinyl applied.

While I really don't care for their choice of color and pattern, it was nice to see something beyond just bare metal. It was even more surprising to see that since that isn't even the final fuselage, they will be building a whole new forward fuselage with all of the changes that they have been talking about, such as moving the wing back 4 inches, the engine down an inch and the panel up an inch (I think).

The really big surprise, however was the notification that they would begin taking orders for wing kits the day before Oshkosh officially started (7/21/25) and that they planned to ship the kits by the end of the year. I wasn't really planning to order a kit just yet, but after seeing all of the posts on VAF about people ordering kits, I figured I'd better get a move on lest I have to wait for the second, or later, production run of wing kits.

I got my order in at about 1:00 Pacific, not more than a couple of hours after they started taking orders, and was surprised when I was given builder number 150060. For reference, we had RV-12 kit number 120018 also ordering as soon as they took orders. As of the first week of August, they are already over 130 kits ordered.

Shortly after starting to take orders, they offered a tentative schedule on when the rest of the kits would be available.

• Tail kits, the next in line, will go on sale in December 2025, with deliveries in March 2026

• Fuselage orders will open in August 2026, with deliveries in October 2026

• Firewall-forward kits will go on sale in August 2026, with deliveries by the end of 2026

• Finish kits will go on sale in November 2026, with deliveries by the end of 2026

They also gave estimates for the rest of the kits. The wing kit was initially offered at $19,650, which they called an "introductory price", my guess is that the regular price will be more like $20,000. The estimates for the rest of the kits are:

Tail Kit - $9,000

Fuselage Kit - $20,000

Firewall Forward Kit - $13,000

Finish Kit - $23,000

To me, that looks like a total of $84,650 with the discount on the wing kit or $85,000 without. While that is a lot of clams, I rather expected it to be more than that, I expected it to be closer to what a Sportsman kit used to sell for, when you could get one.

Of course, to that you have to add the cost of engine, prop, avionics, and paint (if desired). That will come to a big number, but it still could be worse.

I'm looking forward to getting my wing kit at the end of the year, but I have a lot of work to do to get ready so...