EAA Air Venture 2025

Videos and news concerning this years edition of the EAA Air Venture.

Some arrivals for this year show.

Footage from Monday...

The Van’s Aircraft RV-15 is on display at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025 with a stunning paint job, a new wing, and a new tail. Chief engineer Rian Johnson said: “We went through a number of flight iterations in the last year. We’ve flown multiple sets of ailerons, about three different flap configurations, and several new empennages.” Rian added the aircraft “flies like an RV, while at the same time having that STOL bush performance, which is new for us.”

The new wing was flown in June and further tested into July. In an update on their website, the company stated: “The entire flap system, from the slot/hinge system to the cable-operated, floor-mounted handle, are being evaluated; so far, we’re really happy with the improvements. The airplane flies straight, stalls well, and performs exceptionally well in slow flight.”

The design features Van’s first high-wing backcountry-capable model. As with all of Van’s aircraft, the construction is all metal. The first release of the RV-15 is a tailwheel aircraft, with a tricycle gear (RV-15A) to follow. According to Van’s website, the RV-15 features a suspension system for the main and tail gear designed for the backcountry and is designed to carry two people and “lots of stuff.” Van’s hopes to offer a floatplane option in the future.

The trip to AirVenture was from the factory in Oregon via Billings, Montana, to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and on to La Crosse, Wisconsin, in one day. “With 60-gallon tanks, that’s impressive,” Rian said. “I got to Billings with 33 gallons used. So it’s a very impressive airplane from a range standpoint. Billings is way past the backcountry where you would have wanted to stop with that extra fuel. … And to make it to La Crosse, in a high-wing bushplane in one day, that’s impressive from Portland, Oregon.”

Every year, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is full of surprises. In 2025, there was none bigger than the Spirit Engineering SE-1. Kept tightly under wraps, four SE-1s made the journey from Grand Junction, Colorado, to Oshkosh to debut the design on the world’s biggest stage. The four SE-1s arrived at Oshkosh after burning a total of 88 gallons of fuel, and the aircraft have been the buzz of the convention.

Priced at $69,500 out the door, the special light-sport aircraft (S-LSA) draws attention with its design that is reminiscent of aviation’s classics. Think Luscombe, Ryan ST, or Swift. Steve Wood, president of Spirit Engineering, sat down with AirVenture Today to share the story of how the aircraft came to be. Steve has an aeronautical engineering degree but said he “wanted to work on little airplanes.” He took a job with Cessna right out of college and worked in its Pawnee engineering facility for about five years.

“I left Wichita the day of the first flight of the 208 Caravan,” Steve said. “That was the last project I worked on. After I left Cessna, I campaigned an ultralight here at Oshkosh, the Sky Pup, back in the early ’80s. It was never a kit; never was anything other than plans. Sold a lot of plans. It still has an unbelievable following.

“I started a consulting business after I left Cessna, working on what I would call the lunatic fringe of aviation: ultralights, racers, aerobatic stuff, bushplanes. We did all the design work of the Sherpa in Grand Junction, and then somehow, I got in the DOD business, which is probably more lucrative than the airplane business,” he said. “What I got from that was a lot of experience in manufacturing to high-quality standards and schedules. I learned process definition, process control, and how to make stuff.”

The SE-1 is an all-metal, clean-sheet design.

“Our intention from the beginning is we’re setting ourselves up to build a lot of them, and we’ve set up our plant to do several airplanes a day. We just got the first S-LSA certificate on July 8. [We] took an airplane out of engineering, research, and design and presented it to ASTM compliance. The next day we did the first flight on the first three production airplanes. And three days later, they were S-LSA.

“We very specifically don’t want a whole bunch of versions of this airplane,” Steve said. “The wiring harnesses for the airplane are made outside the airplane; we have three basic harnesses: an airframe harness, an instrument panel harness, and a firewall-forward harness. And those connect through the firewall at a cannon plug. It’s all about controlling labor costs. That’s absolutely what it is. Airplanes are too much hand built. I want people to look at that and think it looks like old-world craftsmanship, when really it’s lasers and CNC equipment used in a way to give this flowing artistic look.”

The engine is also a clean-sheet design.

Steve said, “The only way we’re going to have the engine that we need for our airplane is we’re going to have to design and build it ourselves.” So they did. According to the company’s website, “The Spirit V2 is a normally-aspirated, two-cylinder, four-stroke, inverted ‘V,’ air-cooled, direct-drive aircraft engine featuring a dry sump lubrication system, and a magnetic discharge ignition. This engine is perfectly matched to the SE-1 aircraft.”

Fuel can be 91 octane ethanol-free mogas or 100LL. The website also mentions that “Spirit Engineering validated the Spirit V2 engine during thousands of test runs in its specially-designed engine test cell. Testing exceeding ASTM standards — including running the engine at maximum power for hundreds of hours — was performed to assess power output, durability, detonation margins, and endurance.”

All those photos online that show dozens of airframes lined up in production? Those are real. The aircraft is in production, tested, and ready for sale immediately. The cockpit features an MGL gauge pack, basic VFR instrumentation, and the wings fold for easy transportation and storage. “It folds Grumman style; it goes right up against the fuselage. The stuff you need to do it is all in the airplane. If I showed you how to do it and you practiced 10 times, you’d do it in under two minutes.”

Stop by Booth 218 in the Main Aircraft Display area near DeltaHawk Engines Hangar D or go online to see the specifics at SpiritEng.com, and look for an article on the aircraft in a future issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.

Some STOL stuff.