I remember my excitement that September day in 1989, "Wow! I just got a job with RANS Aircraft Company!" Goodbye to fixing leaky sinks and broken doors at Days Inn. Randy seemed impressed that I was also fronting Legend, a classic rock band, since he was a guitar player too. A previous four year stint with Cessna Aircraft Co added to my credibility. This was going to be perfect!
I'd glimpsed the sail trikes careening along old 40. Then a fellow introduced me to his RANS Nimbus. "Whew!" What a strange bike. Now the fledgling company was making kit aircraft. I could easily imagine all this emerging from Wichita or Denver, but it was happening right here in Hays, KS. Now I had a chance to be part of it. Unbelievable!
I still smile when I think about the small facility in the converted storage shed. Homemade jigs and tooling. Hundreds of hand fabricated parts from shrieking chop saws and rickety drill presses. Randy's hand drawn blueprints and the ubiquitous reminder, "Verify before you multiply".
I soon became involved in bicycle production. We only had the Stratus and the Nimbus. There wasn't a huge demand at that point. We probably sold less than a dozen per month on average. It dovetailed nicely with aircraft work. I made seat, handlebar, idler and other small parts; John Schlitter did everything else including assembly.
As the company progressed into CNC machining and CAD design I moved into programming and production of those beautiful new CNC parts. At the same time I learned from my girlfriend that we were producing a child. Another beauty! RANS and I had new babies together. The S-11 Pursuit and my daughter Caitlyn. I was experiencing fatherhood for the first time at age 42. Randy was testing the "lifting body" concept he'd been imagining since high school. Life was good. Then Randy crashed and nearly burned with his new baby.
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