Vans receives prestigious Godfrey L. Cabot Award

Van receives prestigious Godfrey L. Cabot Award



ACONE is the the oldest aero club in the Americas. On Friday, June 6, ACONE presented Van with the 2014 Godfrey L. Cabot Award. The Godfrey L. Cabot Award, established in 1952, recognizes individuals or teams who have made unique, significant and unparalleled contributions to advance and foster aviation or space flight. Past recipients have included Igor I. Sikorsky, General James H. Doolittle, Paul Poberezny, Chuck Yeager, Bob Hoover, "Voyager? Team " Burt Rutan, Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, .... Quite an impressive list! It was a proud moment to see Van receive the 2014 Godfrey L. Cabot award. A few RV builders were on hand to help honor Vans contributions. Left to right, Dave Fetherston (RV-14), Rich Mileika (RV-7), Van, Mike Draper (RV-8).

Very well deserved. I've thought for quite awhile that Van's contributions to the industry have been under recognized.

It's not too much of an exegeration to say he has fundamentally revolutionized the personal segment of general aviation. By making amateur built category aircraft available and accepted by a much larger segment of the pilot population he has probably delayed, if not prevented, the demise of personal flying machines.

That's up there in overall impact to the industry no matter how you cut it.

Build a better mousetrap.....

rbibb said:

By making amateur built category aircraft available and accepted by a much larger segment of the pilot population he has probably delayed, if not prevented, the demise of personal flying machines.
That's up there in overall impact to the industry no matter how you cut it.

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Very much deserved.

Anyone have current statistics on how many total certified piston deliveries there were in 2013, vs total new EAB airworthiness certificates granted to Vans types?

Cessna & Cirrus

According to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association 2013 report, Cessna sold 206 piston single engine aircraft in 2013 and Cirrus sold 270. The total worldwide sales of piston aircraft (all manufacturers) in 2013 were 831 aircraft.

Van's Hobbs numbers for the beginning of 2014 and 2013 show that 568 RV's were finished that during 2013. So more RV's were finished last year than Cessna and Cirrus combined. If you add Vans' numbers to the certified totals, there were about 1400 new piston single engine aircraft, with about 40 percent of them being RV's.

Looking at it another way, probably a third of new Lycoming engines end up in RV's.

Not only is this man a tremendous asset to aviation, but a true genius, and a true gentleman. A rare combination. I am humbled just to know him. Well deserved, Dick!

Bob

TThurston said:

According to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association 2013 report, Cessna sold 206 piston single engine aircraft in 2013 and Cirrus sold 270. The total worldwide sales of piston aircraft (all manufacturers) in 2013 were 831 aircraft.

Van's Hobbs numbers for the beginning of 2014 and 2013 show that 568 RV's were finished that during 2013. So more RV's were finished last year than Cessna and Cirrus combined. If you add Vans' numbers to the certified totals, there were about 1400 new piston single engine aircraft, with about 40 percent of them being RV's.

Looking at it another way, probably a third of new Lycoming engines end up in RV's.

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Congratulations to Van and really all of Vans Aircraft for having a great philosophy and sticking to it. Van's ideas of make it easy, affordable, and exciting is definitely the way to expand aviation to the masses and others, including the FAA, need to do the same. It is great that Van's contribution to all of aviation, and not just experimental, is being recognized. Numbers listed above are impressive.
Back to experimental, does anybody have the number of experimentals registered in the last 30 years and what percent RVs are of the experimental fleet?