Hello there,

I am looking for someone who flies or operates an Airvan. Any comments anyone?

ed

Are you in Thompson?You can call Northway in St Andrews.

I have about 100 hrs on the minivan and for a small plane it's alot of fun to fly. The plane climbs like a mountain goat, TO performance is good and it carrys a good load. If you are thinking of picking one up I strongly recomend the cargo pod. The pod holds 400 lbs and has a floor loading of 150lbs/sq.ft. Without the pod it is only a 5 passenger airplane because of an aft CofG. With the pod on a 100 mi trip it can easily haul 6 up and 7 back(given a healthy mix of men, women and children). Cabin volume is only slightly smaller than a Beaver with the baggage extension. Fuel burn is about 65 l/hr at 2500'. But given its rate of climb (6-700fpm loaded in the summer, 1000 fpm in winter) climb high and it drops your fuel burn to 52-55 l/hr. at 7500' The aircraft is relatively new so there is some design flaws. Below minus 20 it is quite cold in the cabin, above not to bad. The trim system had a few problems but that has been taken care of. Also the seat belts were to short for the winter coats of our passengers. A small seat belt extension has solved that problem up to about a 300 lb person.
The standard GPS is the KMD 150 which I find user friendly. Everything in the cockpit is laid out very well. At 6' tall getting in and out isn't that bad but I wouldn't want to be much taller.
I'm sorry Melby but I will have to disargee with you on whats needed to move 6-7 people. The 207 is good for 5 or fewer but the Airvan will easily take 7 at almost half the fuel burn of the Beaver.

I got to go for a rip in a Gips Airvan with the demo pilot when it was through YAV, good times! With a full load of passangers it still was able to get off in less that 1500' and climb at a good rate, and it was pretty hot out. We only did one circuit but again short field preformance with a full load was pretty impressive.

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What's the Take off Roll like and how short can you get her down?