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davediehl

Member
For part of a magazine article I am writing I'd like to hear some compelling stories about how the Van's Air Force site has helped you: a: connect you to the Van's community at large; and/or b: helped you or motivated you in your RV building process.
 
Dave, don't forget about another HUGE element of the VAF/RV experience.

There are many of us now that didn't build the RVs that we own. My son and I are on our third. In my view, VAF becomes even more important when you're dealing with an aircraft that you didn't build but now must maintain, repair or update. For me personally, I cannot count the number of times that I have come to this site for information and guidance. You know, experimentals don't come with a maintenance manual but what we have in VAF is an almost unlimited resource of others that have experienced just about all that can be experienced with RVs. Combine this with the many professionals on here, Walt, Vic and others, and it makes it so much easier to maintain these incredible machines. We just did a recent panel upgrade and I came here many times looking for knowledge. VAF participants always delivered. My "new" panel was completed almost entirely with used avionics. All of them were sourced from VAF participants with one, Walt, sending me a EMS D-10 that I had been searching for for months.
 
Dave, to add to the earlier comment by 74-07, I recently bought an RV-10 and the VAF Forum was a huge part of it. I posted on the forum asking for (and receiving) a demo flight in an RV-10 , found (and eventually landed up buying) a plane that was posted in the Classifieds section of VAF, found an A&P to do my pre-buy inspection and found a CFI to do my transition training and all that was through VAF.

Now that I own the -10 without having the knowledge that comes from building it, VAF is proving to be hugely helpful in getting guidance of various items large and small as I get to know the plane and how it needs to be flown and maintained.

If it will be helpful, I am happy to provide more details in a PM.

Cheers,

Vas

Vas
 
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Early on, we knew nothing about VAF. Through advise from friends, I started looking at VAF, and quite frankly it was the springboard to launching TS Flightlines. Now, with the joint venture AS Flightlines, we get comments every day that clients found us through VAF. I would say that lot of other companies get quite a bit of their clientele via VAF.

Tom
 
I, and I suspect many others on here, would never have launched off on a build project without VAF. I remember having a list of 4 or 5 kit types that I was interested in, and was looking at builder support and "type clubs" for help, and when I accidentally ran across VAF the first thing I did was add an RV to my potential kit list - and quickly after that crossed off the others. The RV community helps its own, through Doug's site, like no other kit community.
 
Its a true family

When I started my RV-4 build , there was no VAF and the RV community utilized the Vans issued RVator publications, and dabbled with Matronics on the infant web based forums. When Doug got the VAF running, it was an instant migration of braintrust and newbies alike, something that no other experimental group can compare to. Many of us (I'm guilty) are on this site several times a day, sharing success, failure, ideas and events..as well as short-cutting the tedious process of finding quick resources for supplies and gadgetry. I personally cant imagine what we would do without it. I do a fair amount of mentoring with new builders as well as folks that purchased a flying RV..my first comment to them is always "Have you joined VAF yet ?". We are a fortunate group to have what Doug and his moderators have developed this marvelous tool/journal into. Google anything RV aircraft related and 99% of the search results will take you to a VAF forum page or photo.
 
As a first time builder, I would not have been able to build mine at all without VAF. I don't know how people used to even do it without the Internet, let alone without VAF.
 
VAF

First, let's get the important stuff. Donate every year. More than minimum. This site provides a valuable resource. I do.
I wouldn't be building without VAF either. It's THE authoritative site for all things Vans. It has connected me with my Mentor, Dave Paule as well as several other trusted "experts".
Also sending a PM.
 
I would venture to say that many builders would have a difficult time building without VAF as a resource. Either that or Van’s would need to add exponentially more technical support staff to their payroll.
 
VAF is a great resource. However I found it to be too much info at times which was hard to keep track of and hard to search as you had to use the "right" words or you might not get a relevant result. It was more useful AFTER I had made a mistake to see what others had come up with. I wanted to reduce the amount of mistakes though, but there was no way to look up issues logically and before there was an oopsie, and more importantly remind me as I was approaching that part of the build to watch out for an issue. That was the reason I started cataloging the RV-14 threads on to my digital plans so that I could learn from others mistakes before I made them, as I got to the relevant section. This led to the birth if the RV-14 WIKI a PDF copy of the plans living on dropbox but hyperlinked to relevant VAF threads.

I hope eventually that VAF could take ownership with volunteers to maintain it as right now If I stop for any reason there would be no continuity.
 
I built a Europa XS with Rotax 914. I visit VAF nearly every day because there is so much information on a variety of subjects. Lots of avionics and instrument experiences, Rotax and electrical system questions I can occasionally help with, places to visit, the list goes on. VAF has so many threads on such a wide variety of subjects it the the one place to go to learn about experimental aviation!

I even look at the weather links for a quick look first thing in the day!

Jim Butcher
 
As a first time builder, I would not have been able to build mine at all without VAF. I don't know how people used to even do it without the Internet, let alone without VAF.

Ditto! I always wanted to build an airplane but thought of it as an impossible task. Along comes the internet and after researching every build log I could find (and reading VAF daily) I came to the realization that it was entirely possible. Now flying my RV-9A for 8 years and approaching 1000 hours, this site has positively changed my life for the best.
 
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