AirVenture 2007 - RVs
I stopped by the Vans booth and sat in their RV-7 pictured here.  Won't be long before I'm sitting in mine, I hope. 
The new RV-12 Light Sport Aircraft.
Notice the pop-rivets on the left.  The RV-12 is pop-riveted instead of bucked flush rivets like the non-LSA RVs.
I guess I don't have to tell anybody whose RV this is.  Well, yes, it's Dan Checkoway's famous RV-7.  He was out here for the 35-ship RV formation flight.  His Weathermeister.com site is quite useful, especially nowdays when the flight service stations are having their troubles. 
Another famous RV, owned by Paul and Victoria Rosales. 
The Beautiful Doll.
The 35 formation pilots briefing before their formation hop Wednesday afternoon. 
There were three rows of 11+ RVs.  The first row is starting engines. 
The second row pulling out to taxi.
 
The third row taxiing out. 
Van's RV-10 giving someone a $100,000 ride while one of the eight RV four-ships takes off. 
The arrow formation.
The big diamond.  Van -- Richard VanGrunsven, founder and CEO of Van's Aircraft Company -- was interviewed during the fly-over.  He was asked how he felt seeing how far it had come from just starting out 35 years ago bringing his RV-3 to Oshkosh.  He commented that for some builders it was "the greatest thing they had ever done in their lives".  He mentioned how flying 1000 pound RVs in close formation in some ways was more challenging than 20,000 pounds F-16s or F-18s. 
These airborne pictures were taken by Pat Dulaney and posted by Dan Checkoway.  It must have been awesome to be in the same piece of sky with 34 other RVs over Oshkosh, the biggest aviation event in the world.
 
 
RVs over Oshkosh. 
 
What can you say?
Back to earth.  An RV on some very large floats. 
Nice paint job on this Harmon Rocket. 
This Harmon Rocket had an interesting paint job.  Reminded me of an Afrika Corps Me-109 -- just needs the German crosses. 
This one got my vote for wildest RV paintjob. 
 
This is sort of what I'm thinking for my RV -- only gloss black instead of the bright yellow.  Although I like the bright yellow too. 
I went to the RV barbecue put on by Bob Collins and lots of volunteers.  Unfortunately I got the time wrong and showed up an hour late.  Still it was a good time.  It was fun to connect real people with names I have come to know from three and a half years of reading builders websites and the VAF forums. 
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