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World
of RVs - Van's Protoshop Your identity has been
verified. Your security level of "top secret"
will permit you to take a tour of Van's development
facility the...Protoshop.
Van’s hangar and
prototype shop lies between the tall trees on the east
end of the Sunset airstrip. When you drive down the
pot-holed dead end road and end up in front of a faded
pink building with a brown garage door, it sure
doesn’t feel like you’re looking at any kind of
aircraft development facility. Don’t be deceived. It
may look rustic, even crude, but some of the world’s
best sport aircraft have emerged from that door. This is
the way it used to be before we moved to our Aurora facility.
Many Van’s employees
remember when this modest building housed the whole
Van’s Aircraft operation. Every
phase of the business was there: prototyping, production
manufacturing, engineering, drafting, crate building,
the office (which housed the company’s only computer)
and the (singular) bathroom. This
was the
birthplace of most of Van’s designs.
Today we have a new "Protoshop". The
engineering and drafting departments occupy offices on
the second floor at our Aurora facility. The RV-7/7A was the first completed
project from our new "Protoshop" here in
Aurora.
We won’t blame
you if you look extra hard for hints of upcoming
designs, as you take a tour of our facility. Like that
fuselage over by the far wall, under the tarp, and you
ask. What’s that?
Well, we could tell
you…
But we won’t. Yet.
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