Another word of support
Certainly makes me reevaluate why I bother......
I usually avoid threads of complaints, but when a valuable member of a forum begins to wonder why he bothers, a word of encouragement is in order. I'm sure the thought was just in passing but I want you to know that I and many others value your unofficial input.
Someone upthread mentioned his opinions about the matter and I agree that we are each entitled to our own opinions. But like the saying goes, we are not each entitled to our own facts.
I can't speak to the earliest purchasers of the wing kit but as of Airventure 2013 there are simply no facts that an early or imminent delivery of all kits was being promised.
I put my money down at Airventure 2013 which was a few days after the announcement of Vans taking orders for the empennage kit. I spoke with everyone at the Vans both and took a demo flight in the 14.
No one made any promises of any kind about future deliveries and none would speculate about a schedule of deliveries when pressed. The most I got - and I believe the official Vans company line at the time - was that the plan was for the fuselage kit to quickly follow the deliveries of the empennage kit. Verbal comments were similar but hedged, referring to un-forseen empennage kit delays as an example.
From that point on, while there has not been a tremendous amount of communications from Vans about delivery schedules, the statements on the website have spoken for themselves. They contain no promises of any kind.
When I put my money down, I spoke to my wife about two risks we had in buying the 14. The first was that the kits would be released much later than planned and I would catch up and be waiting for kits.
I told her about how long I saw it took for the 12 to finish up and told her the risk of delay was very high to near certain. However, the risk of me catching up based on my previous build was low. She laughed that risk off.
The second risk I considered extremely low to vanishingly small. That was that some financial issue could befall Vans as it has many other kit manufacturers and that some of the remaining kits would not get delivered at all. Even with the reputation Vans had that was the only thing we considered of any threat, albeit a minuscule one.
I also told her that once the finishing kit came out, no mater what happened I would be able to finish the airplane. I predicted then a summer 2016 completion date with many caveats.
The kit delays are not outrageous or something that could not be foreseen as happening. The quality of the kit however has been absolutely up to the standards that Vans has told us it would be.
As far as I'm concerned the Vans staff merely need keep up as they are doing and all will be well.