Any indication of a Vans price increase for 2017?

Just wondering if anyone had heard any rumblings from the mothership if they intend on raising prices after the new year. I think they have typically done this in the past, but so long as you got your order submitted before the new year, you could still get the old price.

Reason I ask is that I am about to buy my wings, and want to know if I need to go ahead and get it submitted before the 31st to lock in the 2016 prices.

In the past Vans has given advance notice. Just check <vansaircraft.com> once a month or so. Since nothing is posted yet, I think you may assume January prices will be unchanged.

one fabulous idea?

....so, why not move production to the underutilized Bombardier facilities in Quebec?
.....full billion-dollar government subsidies, 30% savings on the exchange rate alone....kits should be about...oh..... $172 usd each!

(okay, sorry, just a tiny bit political there, but you get the idea!)

oh, and Canada Post will delivery them, anything, anywhere,

eventually!

Price increase

CubedRoot said:

Just wondering if anyone had heard any rumblings from the mothership if they intend on raising prices after the new year. I think they have typically done this in the past, but so long as you got your order submitted before the new year, you could still get the old price.

Reason I ask is that I am about to buy my wings, and want to know if I need to go ahead and get it submitted before the 31st to lock in the 2016 prices.

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Usually they hit around April 1st. Humorous date for a price increase.

I vaguely remember there being a notification from Van's in the last year or two that they were changing how their price increases were handled. Something about a new purchasing method/system was going to cause price changes to occur as their costs increased as opposed to the traditional yearly adjustment. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Shane

JumpNurse said:

I vaguely remember there being a notification from Van's in the last year or two that they were changing how their price increases were handled. Something about a new purchasing method/system was going to cause price changes to occur as their costs increased as opposed to the traditional yearly adjustment. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Shane

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Shane, I think I may have found the document you are referring to:

http://www.vansaircraft.com/images/open/2015-Kit-Pricing.pdf

It was released in 2015, so it looks like the kit prices will just increase as they incur the price increases. We won't get any warning when it happens. I guess this really helps control the rush of buyers trying to get the end-of-year pricing before it changes

When the price increases occurred annually, generally they seemed to be not much more than a couple of tanks of fuel would cost. Something to consider.
Merry Christmas
DaveH

Not trying to "stir it up" or cause some controversy, but as far as pricing is concerned...

...a friend of mine recently gave me some old (mid 90s to early 2000s) issues of the EAA "Sport Aviation" magazine when he was cleaning his hangar. I only got into this whole aviation thing and joined EAA/AOPA about 5 years ago now. Looking through those old issues is depressing - man, were the Vans kit prices LOW back then!!! Really wished I'd discovered experimental aviation back then!

Again, not trying to cause trouble. But my point I guess from this rant is...buy a Vans kit(s) as soon as you can afford to.

At any rate, thanks for the rant, and I hope all y'all VAF folks have a Merry Christmas (or are having a Happy Hanukkah) and a Happy New Year!!!

Jimbot said:

Not trying to "stir it up" or cause some controversy, but as far as pricing is concerned...

...a friend of mine recently gave me some old (mid 90s to early 2000s) issues of the EAA "Sport Aviation" magazine when he was cleaning his hangar. I only got into this whole aviation thing and joined EAA/AOPA about 5 years ago now. Looking through those old issues is depressing - man, were the Vans kit prices LOW back then!!! Really wished I'd discovered experimental aviation back then!

Again, not trying to cause trouble. But my point I guess from this rant is...buy a Vans kit(s) as soon as you can afford to.

At any rate, thanks for the rant, and I hope all y'all VAF folks have a Merry Christmas (or are having a Happy Hanukkah) and a Happy New Year!!!

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The Wayback Machine from 1997

http://web.archive.org/web/19970628181633/http://www.vansaircraft.com/decide/price.htm

Jimbot said:

Again, not trying to cause trouble. But my point I guess from this rant is...buy a Vans kit(s) as soon as you can afford to.

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I think you have the wrong idea about what has caused most of the price increase over the years......

When I got involved with RV's in the late 80's you could by a complete RV-6 kit for under $7000.

With the current price of just an RV-6 Finish Kit at $7190, if that make you think that everyone working at Van's is driving BMW's you would be wrong.

Most of the price increase over the years is inflation (buying sooner only helps a little with that) with the rest being from improvements that have been made in the kits over the years (upgrading to prepreg cowlings and powder coating steel parts as a couple of examples)

How different were the RV-8 kits back in say '97 compared to now? I'm assuming advances in their production methods correlate to some of the costs with the rest being inflation and a little bit of price elasticity checks.

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the reply. I didn't mean to offend anyone...especially from the "mothership"

Yup, I totally understand that there is tremendous value in a modern-day Vans kit.

I would GLADLY PAY the price for a RV-7 kit (and have!) vs. an RV-6 kit. I know they are very similar and both excellent aircraft...but the truth is I also know that there is NO WAY I could ever complete a 6 - I'm not anywhere skilled enough, and likely never will acquire the skills/patience to do so.

I have tremendous respect for the "old school" builders that have built and fly their own 6s.

rvbuilder2002 said:

......
Most of the price increase over the years is inflation (buying sooner only helps a little with that) ....

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Interestingly the inflation calculator shows that Vans Lycoming engine price for an O-360-A1A has essentially tracked US inflation from 1996 to 2016.

The only difference is that it is now an XO-360-A1A, but built by the same company.

Oh yeah, the price increases that have occurred have been warranted, and not extreme by any stretch.

To give you an idea of just how much they innovate these kits, just take a watch at the Orndorff videos. I bought the tail kit video George Orndorff produced to follow along with as I built my RV-7 tail. His video is based on the -6, and there is a pretty decent amount of improvements in the two. Those improvements make the kit SO MUCH easier to build for first timers like myself, and I'll gladly pay the price differential so I can build a much better plane.

My intention for this post wasn't to criticize the price increases at all. I just faintly remembered that in the past when I was in the "dreaming" phase of building, price increases used to occur around the new year / Q1 time frame. As luck may have it, I am probably a few weeks away from ordering my wings, so I figured I would ask to see if its better to go head and order a little early to save a few hundred bucks.

But, it seems that isn't the case anymore, as Van's is making adjustments incrementally as they themselves incur the higher costs of materials, which actually makes much more sense financially. I'll likely go ahead and get my order in and just consider it my "Christmas present"...maybe that will make it much easier for me to push through my department of finance....AKA Mrs. Dixon.

Jimbot said:

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the reply. I didn't mean to offend anyone...especially from the "mothership"

Yup, I totally understand that there is tremendous value in a modern-day Vans kit.

I would GLADLY PAY the price for a RV-7 kit (and have!) vs. an RV-6 kit. I know they are very similar and both excellent aircraft...but the truth is I also know that there is NO WAY I could ever complete a 6 - I'm not anywhere skilled enough, and likely never will acquire the skills/patience to do so.

I have tremendous respect for the "old school" builders that have built and fly their own 6s.

Click to expand...

I wasn't at all offended.
I just wanted to point out (in case you were serious to any degree) that the kit prices really haven't gone up all that much if you factor in inflation and kit improvements.

It would be very interesting to compare Van's price increases to those of certified aircraft over the same period - and more so to compare "apples to apples" in terms of capability (avionics primarily)...

I think Van's would have a substantial advantage in this type of comparison.

AviatorJ said:

How different were the RV-8 kits back in say '97 compared to now? I'm assuming advances in their production methods correlate to some of the costs with the rest being inflation and a little bit of price elasticity checks.

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The original RV-8 kit is now referred to as the "non-pre-punched" kit sometimes, and the current one is the PP kit. The plans were reworked, and in a convo with the parts department a few months ago while I was looking for a replacement part for my original kit, I found out there are only a couple hands-full of RV-8 parts that are common between the original kit inventory and the PP kit. As such, some of the original kit parts are no longer sitting on the shelf, they're made occasionally or are special-order (or fabricate yourself if you don't want to wait, I suppose) only.

Meaning, when they developed and released the pre-punched kit with all its improvements (parts and plans and the machines and people to make it happen), a lot changed. Almost everything.

The newest design kits are a different world - matched holes and fancy plans. All that, and the equipment it takes to produce them, is pretty pricey stuff. But well worth it! If you ever get a chance to take a tour, you can see in great detail. Good stuff.

No other kit plane gives the builder the Performance to Value ratio of Vans aircraft. That was true in the beginning as it is today. The suitability of aluminum far exceeds the structural life of composites. The new kits today are mature products given the advancements only time and hours in service can bring.
R.Hill

Good Job Van's!!

rvbuilder2002 said:

I wasn't at all offended.
I just wanted to point out (in case you were serious to any degree) that the kit prices really haven't gone up all that much if you factor in inflation and kit improvements.

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The power of yearly compounding. If one takes the CPI by year from 1997 to present and looks at the 6a fuse kit price from then and multiplies them all together. Todays price for the 6A fuse kit less than a hundred dollars over the compounded CPI over all those years (within 3%). Good value then, good value now.

I say - GOOD JOB VANS!!

Like Scott says, buy when you need it, but if you are very near needing it (a couple of months), buy ahead of a possible incremental price adjustment. If you have the money sitting around, invest it for a hedge against inflation. You will be better off. Even long term T-bills grow more than Vans prices.