page_title: Cirrus VK-30
section_title: Design and development
hierarchical_section_title: Cirrus VK-30 / Design and development
caption_attribution_description: Cirrus VK-30 on the ramp before its first flight in 1988.
context_page_description: The Cirrus VK-30 is a single-engine pusher-propeller homebuilt aircraft originally sold as a kit by Cirrus Design, and was the company's first model.
  As a kit aircraft, the VK-30 is a relatively obscure design with few completed aircraft flying. Its most important legacy is that the work done on developing and marketing the aircraft convinced the designers, the Klapmeier brothers, that the best way to proceed in the future was with a more conventional layout and with a certified production aircraft. Thus the lessons of the VK-30 were directly responsible for the design of the Cirrus SR20 and SR22, which have been the best-selling general aviation airplanes in the world every year since 2003. The VK-30 also served as a significant inspiration for the creation of the company's latest aircraft, the Cirrus Vision Jet, which in 2018 won the Collier Trophy for becoming the first single-engine personal jet with a whole-plane parachute recovery system.
context_section_description: The VK-30 design was conceived in the early 1980s as a kit plane project by three college students, Alan Klapmeier and Jeff Viken from Ripon College in Wisconsin, and Alan's brother, Dale Klapmeier, who was attending the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. Jeff Viken's wife, Sally, designed the VK-30's flap system. Together, in the Klapmeiers' parents' barn in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin, they formed Cirrus Design as the company to produce the VK-30 (VK standing for Viken-Klapmeier).
  The aircraft has an all-composite construction and was designed to achieve natural laminar flow over the fuselage as well as the wing and tail surfaces to provide for very low drag—using a NASA NLF(1)-0414F airfoil. The prototype incorporated some parts from production aircraft, including the nose gear from a Piper Cherokee and the main landing gear from a Lake LA-4. The VK-30 was designed to be a five-seat aircraft from the start, which made it considerably larger than most other amateur-built aircraft of its day. It incorporated a mid-engine design, driving a three-bladed pusher propeller behind the tail through an extension shaft. The powerplant was a Continental IO-550-G developing 300 hp (224 kW).
  The VK-30 was introduced at the 1987 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and first flew on 11 February 1988. Kit deliveries commenced shortly thereafter.
  Cirrus discontinued production of the VK-30 towards the end of 1993.
  In 1996 the company announced plans to develop a stronger replacement wing for about 28 VK30s supplied to past customers.
caption: Cirrus Design VK-30 on ramp at the Baraboo–Wisconsin Dells Airport in Baraboo, Wisconsin, c. 1988
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