Dick VanGrunsven
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Dick VanGrunsven
Richard E. "Dick" VanGrunsven (born 1939) is an American aircraft designer and kit plane manufacturer. The number of VanGrunsven-designed homebuilt aircraft produced each year in North America exceeds the production of all commercial general aviation companies combined. In 1973 VanGrunsven founded the aircraft manufacturing company Van's Aircraft, and in 2012 became the founding president of the Aircraft Kit Industry Association (AKIA), an American aviation advocacy association.Bernard, Mary and Suzanne B. Bopp: ''Q&A with AKIA President Dick VanGrunsven'', Kitplanes, Volume 29, Number 12, December 2012, page 28-29. Belvoir Publications. ISSN 0891-1851 Life and career Richard VanGrunsven grew up on a farm near Cornelius, Oregon and is the son of a Portland area farmer. He has seven brothers and sisters. His father had taken flying lessons prior to getting married and his stories inspired Richard and his older brother Jerry to acquire an old Piper J-3 Cub, and later a Taylorcra ...
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Forest Grove, Oregon
Forest Grove is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, west of Portland, Oregon, Portland. Originally a small farm town, it is now primarily a commuter town in the Portland metro area . Settled in the 1840s, the town was platted in 1850, then incorporated in 1872, making it the first city in Washington County . The population was 21,083 at the 2010 census, an increase of 19.1% over the 2000 figure (17,708). Located in the Tualatin Valley, Oregon routes Oregon Route 8, 8, and Oregon Route 47, 47 pass through Forest Grove with 47 and 8 signed as the Tualatin Valley Highway south and east of the main part of the city, respectively, Oregon Route 8 signed as Gales Creek Road west of the city, and Oregon Route 47 signed as the Nehalem Highway north of the city. Pacific University has been the most distinctive aspect of the town throughout its history. Old College Hall on campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places along with nine other structures in the ci ...
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Stits Playboy
The Stits SA-3A Playboy (sometimes called the Stitts SA-3A Playboy) is a single seat, strut-braced low-wing monoplane that was designed by Ray Stits for amateur construction. The aircraft was designed and the prototype was completed in a three-month period during 1952. The design went on to become one of the most influential in the post-war boom in aircraft homebuilding.Plane & Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', page 155. Werner & Werner, 1978. A side-by-side two seat version is known as the SA-3B. Design and development The Playboy was the third of fifteen different aircraft designs created by Stits, who migrated in the 1960s from selling plans to developing the '' Polyfiber'' line of aircraft coverings and related paint formulas. The Playboy was designed to be constructed from either plans or from a series of partial kits. The construction is mixed with the fuselage made from welded steel and the wings built from wood. The aircraft is fabric-covered and incorporates a slid ...
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Bob Hoover
Robert Anderson Hoover (January 24, 1922 – October 25, 2016) was an American fighter pilot, test pilot, flight instructor, and record-setting air show aviator. Hoover flew Spitfires in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and was shot down in 1944 off the coast of France. He was held for over a year in a German POW camp before eventually escaping and flying to safety in a stolen enemy aircraft. He then worked as a United States Air Force and civilian test pilot after the war, flying chase for Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 supersonic flight in 1947, and as a flight instructor for North American Aviation during the Korean War. He is best known as an air show display pilot, who flew for nearly 50 years until his retirement in 1999. Referred to as the "pilot's pilot", Hoover revolutionized modern aerobatic flying and has been described in many aviation circles as one of the greatest pilots of all time.
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Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. He also designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph/551 km/h in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles/41,466 km) nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period. With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and t ...
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Klapmeier Brothers
The Klapmeier brothers, Alan Lee Klapmeier (born October 6, 1958) and Dale Edward Klapmeier (born July 2, 1961), are retired American aircraft designers and aviation entrepreneurs who together founded the Cirrus Design Corporation in 1984. Under the leadership of the Klapmeiers, Cirrus was the first aircraft manufacturer to install a whole-plane parachute recovery system as a standard on all its models—designed to lower the airplane (and occupants) safely to the ground in case of an emergency. The device is attributed with saving over 200 lives to date. From the brothers' use of all- composite airframe construction and glass panel cockpits on production aircraft, Cirrus is known for having revolutionized general aviation for modern light aircraft pilots. ''Forbes'' magazine named Cirrus's highly popular single-engine SR-series (the SR20 and SR22, certified in 1998 and 2000 respectively) ''Best Private Airplane'', saying "the Klapmeier brothers built the first genuinely ne ...
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Experimental Aircraft Association
The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an international organization of aviation enthusiasts based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since its inception, it has grown internationally with over 300,000 members and nearly 1,000 chapters worldwide. It hosts the largest aviation gathering of its kind in the world, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. History The EAA was founded in 1953 by veteran aviator Paul Poberezny along with other aviation enthusiasts. The organization began as more or less a flying club. Poberezny explains the nature of the organization's name, "Because the planes we flew were modified or built from scratch, they were required to display an EXPERIMENTAL placard where it could be seen on the door or cockpit, so it was quite natural that we call ourselves the "Experimental Aircraft Association". The EAA was incorporated in Wisconsin on 22 March 1955. Homebuilt aircraft, Homebuilding is still a large part of EAA, but the organization has grown over the years to include almost ...
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Flight Training
Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a structured accredited syllabus with a flight instructor at a flight school or as private lessons with no syllabus with a flight instructor as long as all experience requirements for the desired pilot certificate/license are met. Typically flight training consists of a combination of two parts: * ''Flight Lessons'' given in the aircraft or in a certified Flight Training Device. * ''Ground School'' primarily given as a classroom lecture or lesson by a flight instructor where aeronautical theory is learned in preparation for the student's written, oral, and flight pilot certification/licensing examinations. Although there are various types of aircraft, many of the principles of piloting them have common techniques, especially those aircraft ...
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Aurora, Oregon
Aurora is a city in Marion County, Oregon, United States. Before being incorporated as a city, it was the location of the Aurora Colony, a religious commune founded in 1856 by William Keil and John E. Schmit. William named the settlement after his daughter. The population was 1,133 at the 2020 Census. It is part of the Salem Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land. The Pudding River flows northward, just east of Aurora. Climate This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above . According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Aurora has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps. Demographics 2020 census As of the census of 2020, there were 1,133 people, and 336 households in the city. There were 431 housing units. The makeup of the city was 79.3% White, 1.3% African American, 1.5% Native ...
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Van's Aircraft RV-14
The Van's Aircraft RV-14 is an American aerobatic kit aircraft designed by Richard VanGrunsven and produced by Van's Aircraft. It was introduced at AirVenture in July 2012. The aircraft is supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Bernard, Mary and Suzanne B. Bopp: ''Van's Aircraft: RV-14'', Kitplanes, Volume 29, Number 12, December 2012, page 19-21. Belvoir Publications. As of November 2022, 207 RV-14s have been completed and flown. Design and development Derived from the four-seat RV-10, RV-14 design work was commenced several years before its 2012 debut. It is an aerobatic two-seater designed to accommodate large pilots and offer greater baggage space, to comply with the US experimental amateur-built aircraft rules. The design goals included improved visibility, a wider cabin, a low landing speed achieved by larger and more effective flaps, good rate-of-climb and glide ratio, landing gear that meets FAR Part 23 certification standards and an airframe designed to accomm ...
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Van's Aircraft RV-4
The Van's RV-4 is an American light homebuilt aircraft supplied in kit form by Van's Aircraft of Aurora, Oregon. It seats two people in a tandem seating configuration with the pilot accommodated in the front seat.Vandermeullen, Richard: ''2011 Kit Aircraft Buyer's Guide'', Kitplanes, Volume 28, Number 12, December 2011, page 74. Belvoir Publications. The Van's RV series has become the most popular kit-built aircraft in the world. , the RV-4 is the fourth most popular RV model. As of November 2022, 1446 RV-4s had been completed and flown worldwide. Development Richard VanGrunsven designed the RV-4 in the mid 1970s as a two-seat development of the single-seat RV-3. The RV-4 prototype first flew in August 1979. The RV-4 is a new design based upon the concepts proven in the RV-3 and is not merely a stretched RV-3. The RV-4 airframe will accept a range of engines up to , including the Lycoming O-360. The RV-4 has a new wing, with increased wingspan and wing area over the RV ...
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Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Oshkosh () is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the western shore of Lake Winnebago and had a population of 66,816 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Wisconsin, ninth-most populous city in Wisconsin. It is also adjacent to the much less populous Oshkosh (town), Wisconsin, Town of Oshkosh in the north. The Oshkosh metropolitan statistical area, which consists of all of Winnebago County, had 171,730 residents in 2020 and is included in the greater Fox Cities region of Wisconsin. History Oshkosh was named for Menominee Chief Oshkosh, whose name meant "claw" (cf. Anishinaabe language, Ojibwe ''oshkanzh'', "the claw"). Although the fur trade attracted the first European settlers to the area as early as 1818, it never became a major player in the fur trade. The 1820s mining boom in southwest Wisconsin along with the opening of the Erie Canal shifted commercial activity away fro ...
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EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at the Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States. The southern part of the show grounds, as well as "Camp Scholler", are located in the town of Nekimi, Wisconsin, Nekimi and a seaplane base, base for seaplanes is located on Lake Winnebago in the town of Black Wolf, Wisconsin, Black Wolf. The airshow is arranged by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), an international general aviation organization based in Oshkosh, and is the largest of its kind in the world. The show lasts a week, usually beginning on the Monday of the last full week in July. During the gathering, the airport's control tower, frequency 118.5, is the busiest in the world. History EAA was founded in Hales Corners, Wisconsin in 1953 by aircraft designer and military aviator veteran Paul Pobere ...
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