RANS Designs - Factory Tour! How it's Made! 

Bryan, I have a new respect for Ran’s Aircraft now thanks to your factory tour. I know lots of aircraft companies use the same manufacturing concepts but I believe Ran’s takes it to a higher level. Manufacturing has used stations for a long time but Ran’s seams to have it down to a science. Every station is well lit, well organized and extremely clean. Their employees are continuously working without an over abundance of personnel standing around collecting dust. I know I keep saying this but this has to be one of your best interviews regarding aircraft manufacturing. I really like the Ran’s product and I think you may have helped me to decide which aircraft we are going to build. You may want to ask them why they didn’t have the aluminum channel pieces striped with a piece of rubber to protect the rudder surfaces being constructed. Even aluminum to aluminum will scratch. I may take a trip out and visit their facility and hand them a check after this pandemic comes to an end. Take care and be safe!

I had the privilege of touring the factory several years ago with Randy as my tour guide. He met me on a Saturday morning to open the factory and walk me through the whole place. Those "off limits" areas have some of the most amazing custom built fabrication machines as well as standard machine shop tools. The factory is amazing, but it was Randy's enthusiasm for safety and quality being engineered into every detail that sold me on the Rans lineup. I was not able to afford making that S-6 purchase back then, but seeing the new S21 makes me just a tiny bit glad I waited. Time to get my order in!

NICE tour, thanks! Very impressive facility. The S-21 Outbound looks sweet as can be. I think being all metal is a huge bonus. 500-550 hours build time get's you in the air faster than other designs.

I was there for that rudder class! My class was in the afternoon, and I believe Shelly introduced us. It was a great day at RANS. Demo flight in the morning and I drove home with a completed rudder that evening. Nice video of both phases, demo flight and factory tour.

Randy and Michelle are the best.

Ooo, this is the tour I've been waiting for.

I love that man's sense of humour.

By far some of the nicest planes out there.

GREAT tour... Heard good things about this aircraft and now I've seen the process... LOVE the wing load test rig and that alone makes me very comfortable with the design. Last time I posted I said you need a new hat..... changed my mind... You need to design a GREAT hat and sell 'em...... I'd be the first to put one in my Aviation Hat Rack. GREAT Aviation Video, A Thank You to Rans and same to you also !!! ( Maybe a Rans Hat too ) .

Videos like this inspires me to fly

Best kits out there!

This is just great, thank you both!

Rans aircraft has become a long way, I have build the S12, S5 and the S6 from them back in the days, they where good planes. The S12 was my favorite to fly as of the view when flying. Cheers.

Owned a Rans S-12 and loved it! Flew the family all over in it with no problems at all. It did have a pretty bad right turning tendency at roll out with a passenger but that is to be expected with a pusher. Wish I could afford a S-9. Looks like a fun little plane!

The wing truss is a perfect demonstration of what happens when a bicycle manufacturer builds an airplane. Beautiful welding! Like an old school racing bike.

Awsome aircrafts very stylish and tuff. I ve owned a 2005 Rans S12XL.for 5 enjoyable years. Never a problem with it, would not trade it for anything. A blast to fly.

CEO seems super cool!

Dude's a genius

America at it’s best! I had a chance visit to the Bellanca/Champion factory in Wasiola Wisconsin in 1973 that at the time manufactured Citabria’s and Decathlon’s and they were nice enough to provide us with a tour. This video reminds me of how they treated us all those years ago without video camera’s.

A smart guy. Watching this makes me put this product on the list for evaluation regardless of the spec.

So wonderful and so nice job 😍

GREAT NICE tour, thanks

Excellent Brian. Well done. Thanks

SUPER COOL! thanks for producing this!

Very cool! Nice shop! Thanks for sharing!

Some great features!

Thanks for the video.👍

Wow, that was a very enlightening tour. I really like Randy and his S-21 Outbound..

Randy is todays "back to the future " mad scientist lol

Good stuff. Welldone

looks like they make really good quality products! 看起来他们产品质量非常不错！

Randy has a great sense of humor as well as a great business. The Outback is for me with the 175HP titan. Consider this an order! Oh, is the pandemic over? I don't see a lot of masks, maybe everyone is from the same family. Oh, and yeah for velum! and the ammonia smell of the blueprint copier... boy that brings back memories.

Hello sponsors thanks for a good show

Great job showing telling have a great day see ya by.

Great video!

Great video! It was a pleasure to take a virtual tour of Ran's aircraft manufacturing facility. Although I'm no expert by any means I can see more quality in manufacturing here at this shop than I have in some of the other shops that are out there. Their wing loading jig is definitely something that I've never seen before. (Were we supposed to see that?) Thank you for another great video.

Very cool video Bryan. I would love to check out the RANS shop and meet Randy.👍🏽👍🏽

I toured Pipistrel in Slovenia a few years ago. This tour reminds me a lot of them.There were places were I could not go or take pictures because it was proprietary. It's mind boggling to see how well organized these companies are, and the detail involved to build to the highest quality possible. I came away very impressed. The biggest difference between Rans and Pipistel is that Pipistrel builds many different electric aircraft. They seem committed to electric propulsion for the foreseeable future. Whereas Rans is committed to cutting edge internal combustion engines. I don't know if Rans has an electric version of their aircraft? I didn't hear Randy mention anything in the video.

I am destined to own one of these planes.

What a clean operation, very nice. Your video also shows Randy's personality and his attention to detail. I really enjoyed watching it. In case RANS is reading through the comments: Please make something like a S-21 2+2 with space for the occasional passenger or things like folding bikes or camping gear. :)

7:37 I like the Pipeliner hood welding airframes. 13:52 A corral of Unicycles...

Great video. From my perspective the two hottest new experimental airplanes are the Sling TSI and the S 21 outbound which is hardly covered in comparison. Glad that you’ve done it. Please get a gimbal next time though.

Interesting to see a S18 fuselage cage sitting up on the shelf, at least to me !

Damn, a CEO that actually knows something, doesn't dress like an undertaker, and has a sense of humor. Holds up a control bell crank and says, "We don't really know what this does"...funny. I guess there actually are a few CEOs that aren't pompous morons. Final products here look really good, and like they would be a lot of fun to own. Classy that he gave a shout out with a nice comment about his engine manufacturer, Titan, as well. I'm quite sure they appreciated that if they've seen this, which I would guess is probably the case. "So you, as a first time builder, might take 65, or a 130, we don't know" He's kidding, but I expect there's some truth there, as well. Cool to see that the in house first time builders class actually produced a part and time given. As a Long EZ builder, I can tell you times can stretch, but ours would likely have been closer without all the discussing, arguing, and golly gee whizzing...as a few friends a fellow builders (other aircraft, mostly, Citabrias, etc. that wanted to see some plastic building processes) so there's that. :-/ Nice tour. "The soul of a good aircraft is born on vellum" I think he may have lost you on that one, you look just a bit too young. I, on the other hand, DID take mechanical drawing in school, so it wasn't lost on me. As an engineer I spent a large part of my career on dedicated unix based workstations and PCs designing electronics, so I spanned both worlds. Also worked programs with 12 terra flop proprietary video processors a couple of decades and a half ago, so drove some of it, as well. Too bad we couldn't see the 'serious' parts manufacturing portion. Sounds like quite an operation. I remember the first laser 3D printer I saw (way back) and thought that was pretty amazing stuff, for the time. Now they are printing metal parts. It won't be all that long before they are printing atomic and supramolecular assemblies, I expect, and hearts, lungs, etc. The tech advancements just keep rolling along, at ever increasing Moore's law rates. We live in an amazing time...right at the cusp of hand design and one off manufacturing to assembly line to computer aided to (maybe) AI design. Here using relatively recent processes like hydroforming, etc.

Now you need to visit Airdrome Aeroplanes in Holden MO. They make kits for WWI replica airplanes.

Note all metal. Would like to have heard his response about fabric vs metal. Weight vs strength..

Very nice and efficient set up. I think I'd question one thing though and I'd probably question this same issue at a significant number of airplane manufacturers as well as other industries. Where are the torque wrenches? I heard the factory tech instructing the customer assembling a rudder, "There's no need to deform the metal. Just snug it up."As an ex-submarine guy, that doesn't give me the warm and fuzzy's. Just a thought.

One of your better videos. Thanks. I'm a little concerned about a mig welded fuselage. Hopefully the high strength areas a tig and the mig was just to put stand offs on it?

Napkins are for after you eat. Although I feel I've started with less at times.

I’m from Hutchinson Kansas.

17:00 BUILD THAT PLEASE!!!! 2 engines from Subsonex!!! BD-10, Viperjet, both not very successful, but that within $250K-$300K would move some airframes!

دمت‌گرم

16:59 please can we have that please S22

Michelle told me specifically that they don't paint or powder coat, and that the fuselage cage (at least the S7) would come bare.

With all that aluminum how heavy is the complete plan?

Is the bird cage of the Rans S20/S21 4130 Chromoly tubing?

I wish they still offered the s-4-5 coyote.

Wished you would have asked him what makes his kits easier to assemble than the others. Apparently, a lot of whiz-bang stuff you couldn't photograph. So what! How does it make it easier for the kit builder? Does it add value to the builder's process? Would also have liked Randy to talk about his plans for improved kits, if any .... easier, better, faster, higher quality, etc.

Wow, cool place! If they need a CFI/A&P who also knows Solidworks and writes embedded software and UI in C++, give me a call...

No recumbent bike?

Nice video! As an aerospace welder by trade, I was not very impressed with any kind of mig welding on a fuselage. That should all be exclusively tig imo. But over all sweet planes.

Sounds like you've put down a deposit? I'll be YouTubing my build from Bend, OR. We should link up! I enjoy your content. Cheers

Dam I thought napkins would be enough

It's a shame you couldn't show us the fabrication side that's really the meat and potatoes of the whole operation.

Эх ! А у нас трактора!

Hello

Randy, you don't look like a typical CEO. I'm gonna guess that if we were neighbors, we'd be good friends. You are my kind of guy.

Dear sir i am hydralic techniction i have 15 year experience so want hydralic techniction job

15.03 New friends?

Dear sir i have us experience & documents

Manufacturer Model Cabin Width Rans S-6 Coyote 42 45 Inches,S-20 Raven 46 Inches,S-21 Outbound 46.5 Inches Just Aircraft Highlander, Superstol , Supersol XL 44 Inches Kitfox Series 7 Supersport, Speedster, STi 43 Inches Cessna 172 Skyhawk, 182 Skylane 42 Inches Piper Archer LX 42 Inches

Сколько стоит самолёт?

How can I get a job there??? I'll work for sandwiches.

Glad to see you guys using your brains and not wearing masks.

If they tig welded all of it is move there today

Great channel and vid! I would love to see more but I am deleting my RU-vid account due to their cancelling conservative voices. I am moving to Rumble and hope to see you there someday

I was sold till I saw the welders stitching the frame together 🙄

Love the video but the video being out of focus is killing me.

When there's already an aircraft manufacturer called VANS... why would anyone want to name their company RANS?! That's got trademark infringement suit written all over it.

I quit watching after the third time of the tour guide saying " Oh I can't bring the tour camera to that area". Why call it a tour if you don't want to give a watcher a tour. Very poor presentation ! wish I could give it a 1000 thumbs down.

Great video!