Lead times are getting ridiculous, it’s now 12 mos lead for a finishing kit.....
. . . the Synergy classes until August, . . . I'm hoping by the time I get to the other pieces, that time will have come down.
Just a heads up: If you're taking the 8 day (RV-10) Synergy Air empennage class you will mostly finish the empennage kit during the class, so with the current long lead times you may want to consider ordering your next kit now. However if you are only taking the 1 day Synergy Air intro class, than you will have a lot of work to do following the class.
For what it's worth, I highly recommend the Synergy Air Empennage class. I found it to be a very valuable in-depth learning environment that gave me a great start in building my RV-10. After those 8 days I had a very good understanding of what good building looks like and how to accomplish it, and had used a wide variety of different tools so that I had a good idea of which ones I wanted to buy. The intro class doesn't even come close.
Welcome to the world of EAB. Hope you find it as enjoyable and I have.
I don’t think the delays will last, stock market will take a beating next year and the economy will be in the toilet within 6 months of that, along the way plenty of orders will be cancelled
Has anyone ordered a fuselage kit lately? Curious what the lead time is on that. I am supposed to have a crate date this December for the wings.
I ordered a tail kit about 4 months ago, when the lead time was saying 4 months. Website is still saying "parts being produced." Has anyone that ordered before August been getting tail kits delivered? Starting to wonder what people are seeing as to actual deliveries from order times or if everything is at a standstill.
As others have said I'm sure they are doing the best they can, so I don't want to come off as complaining, but what is causing this backlog? Is it the aluminum itself? I know a friend in the garage door business told me their steel doors were getting back to normal lead times, but their aluminum stuff was months behind.
I ordered a tail kit about 4 months ago, when the lead time was saying 4 months. Website is still saying "parts being produced." Has anyone that ordered before August been getting tail kits delivered? Starting to wonder what people are seeing as to actual deliveries from order times or if everything is at a standstill.
As others have said I'm sure they are doing the best they can, so I don't want to come off as complaining, but what is causing this backlog? Is it the aluminum itself? I know a friend in the garage door business told me their steel doors were getting back to normal lead times, but their aluminum stuff was months behind.
I ordered my empennage kit very beginning of June 2021, when the delivery was supposed to be 4 months. I have not heard a peep to date. Website says parts in production...
Ordered my QB Wings Sept 2019. Estimate Crate Date is now Feb 16 2022 - Jul 20 2022
Ordered my Finish Kit and FWF Kits Jan 2020. Vans website says - Parts Being Produced. No Crate Date listed.
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I find it hard to believe that you ordered something 9/19 and the crate date is 2.5 years later.
I ordered a tail kit about 4 months ago, when the lead time was saying 4 months. Website is still saying "parts being produced." Has anyone that ordered before August been getting tail kits delivered? Starting to wonder what people are seeing as to actual deliveries from order times or if everything is at a standstill.
As others have said I'm sure they are doing the best they can, so I don't want to come off as complaining, but what is causing this backlog? Is it the aluminum itself? I know a friend in the garage door business told me their steel doors were getting back to normal lead times, but their aluminum stuff was months behind.
The history I remember says this doesnt usually happen; even in tough times airplane kits dont tend to have cancelations. Maybe a slow down in new orders might happen.
Machines that are used to produce parts for our kits are not being used on the RV15 during normal work shifts. Prototype parts that are being developed for the RV15 are being done by prototype engineers and a handful of workers in the middle of the night, like 2 am, after second shift is over. That doesn’t affect kit and parts production at all.
Scott
It’s great that you are keeping up with the times and coming up with new ideas. But couldn’t that time be used to produce more parts for your current orders? At least until the backlog is brought down to a more reasonable level. Sounds like getting raw materials isn’t most of the problem, it’s having parts produced faster in more quantities. Just my thoughts.
I worked commercial construction for 30 years. When we got backed up we added another shift to get back on schedule ����*![]()
I know Van's is a relatively small company, but the difficulty in finding the status of a big order like a kit compared to the excess of status updates routinely found in e-commerce these days requires a great deal of faith on the part of the customer that Van's is doing their best. I'd think it would be in their interest to make more informaton about kit statuses and production schedules available to their customers to help with the growing frustration at the overall situation. It may not be their fault (I don't think it is given my experience with other companies and products), but that doesn't mean PR can't be improved.
As a benchmark, I offer the following; I've spent pretty much my entire adult life working in the aerospace industry, a good portion of it at Cessna, and I can assure you that Cessna knows a thing or two about building airplanes.
At this point, the lead time for a new C172 is over two years, and thats with Cessna/Beech having several hundred-thousand square feet of factory space and the personnel that populate it devoted to parts manufacturing before you even start talking about assembly.
My day job mechanics can't find tires. Good thing RVs only have one tire per gear leg, and we aren't dealing with 6 tires per plane.
Based on what I’ve witnessed with aerospace manufacturing, it’s a multitude of different problems, all of which require a paradigm shift that many businesses will be challenged with:
- Shortage of raw materials such as aluminum, steel, even simple materials/chemicals used in manufacturing processes.
- Employee absences due to COVID (whether real or simply taking a COVID-cation).
- High turnover due to a very lucrative job market. This is the era of the great resignation. Employers who offer remote work or unique perks are very attractive.
- The old paradigm of cracking the whip harder on the remaining employees is exasperating the problem.
- Prioritize new R&D vs. Production? Production, hands down. I hate to say this because I’m impatiently waiting on any update on the RV-15. I think Vans will be hard-pressed to get anything presentable for Air Venture 2022.
- All vendors who supply to the top-level aerospace company suffer from all the above. Lead times prove to be inaccurate and ship dates can slip weeks or months. Some vendors are unable to provide lead times at all. The top tier company often has zero idea when they can offer finished parts to the customer.
So I assume this is typical and not some special case that delayed the order.More data points for those wondering....
My Van's Down payment was placed on an RV8 QB fuse, QB wings, and finish kit November 2020. The wings shipped early December '21, and Fuse/finish just recently (December '21) shipped. So my Van's lead time was roughly 12-13 months for my RV-8 QB kits. I understand that number is now larger. BTW, the QB fuselage was earlier than Van's previous verbal estimates, which had a large, large window.
While we're on lead times...My Titan IO-370 was ordered with a Feb'22 ship date, and the last update I got was spring or summer '22. So that makes the Titan leads around 12-16 months. Sent a deposit to Stein's in late April '21 for a panel design/build...they're not yet working yet on my project, and the last contact indicates that the queue is long. That's 8+ months and I think the estimate was 10 months. I ordered an Andair fuel valve in April '21 with a 6-8 week lead time and got the valve in June '21 (2-3 months). Gretz pitot mast....still waiting on a Spruce backorder a few month ago, so I ordered the "blue" one when my wings shipped. If you gotta have a Gretz mast, you should order it. If you have one and your wings are months and months from shipping....call me. Skydesigns gun drilled gear legs were ordered in Mar '21 and arrived quicker than expected, Jun '21.
YMMV