Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jake Reyna on August 2, 2010 at 6:03pm

Time heals all wounds. I don't see how ZAC will discontinue the series after having put so much time and money into improving the design. There really isn't a better airplane in it's class, metal low wing with a wide cabin. You can spend more money on other airplanes, but they won't be better than the XL/650.

Meanwhile, why not focus on the positive, the 750.

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Permalink Reply by Jerold Ebke on August 2, 2010 at 6:05pm

Tom,
I am building a 650 and have continued to receive help and parts as needed from ZAC. We need to continue to promote the plane in the public with examples of first flights and the successes we experience as builders. Only time and tons of positive first flight or completion pictures in the magazines that homebuilders read will bring back the good name of the Zodiac.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Sire on August 2, 2010 at 6:45pm

In the forum they mentioned that they plan to have updated 650 plans which incorporate all of the changes included in the upgrade sometime in the next few weeks. I spoke to Nick at the booth and his basic round about response was "well our factory demo plane is 10 years old", "we were hoping that some builders would bring in a plane", "we wanted to concentrate on taking care of our current 601 builders". Given that there may only be a handful of modified 601s flying, it is probably a bit early to expect much builder presence at AV. Hopefully next year will be a different and drier story and several 601/650s will be there.

I think the 650 does offer a compelling value, but I would also not be too surprised if at some point they offer a "670" which increases the coefficient of horizontal tail volume. It is freakishly low and is probably the root cause of the pitch sensitivity issues.

Speakin o' which... there are no plans to offer any type of spring compensating mechanism (as was discussed last year) to increase stick pressure at higher g loadings. I think the FAA is not pushing that since it seems to be a somewhat common characteristic in LSA class aircraft and they don't want to get into evaluating every other LSA.

By focusing on the 750 they still keep the brand in play and positively so.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Sonders on August 2, 2010 at 7:20pm

According to the Matrionics list, there should have been a 601 XL-B (Corvair) on display but the builder/pilot couldn't fly into OSH due to the weather/parking situation...and he diverted to K79C.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Edward M. Moody II on August 3, 2010 at 2:57pm

The 601XL and its parts are still supported by Zenith but the 650 has supreceded it. Since there was no flying 650 available for display and since no one can buy a 601XL kit from the factory any longer, no model on display is pretty much self-explanatory. Until people get used to the over the top safety margin of the upgraded 601XL and the 650 begins to make its own mark in the market and the furor of the last couple of years settles down, ZAC would be wasting precious trade show time and energy on them. As for support form the factory, I spent a lot of time talking with the Heintz brothers at Airventure and I have no doubt that I still enjoy their full factory support for my XL.

Ed

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Permalink Reply by Brenda Smith on August 3, 2010 at 9:26pm

I've made a significant investment in time and money in my 650 and am anxious to get it flying. We recently had a factory person stop for fuel at our airport. We invited him to see our progress and see our hangar mates 650 that had just received its airworthiness certificate. He declined saying he did not have time to see the planes. When our friend's published their accomplishment on this site, no one from the factory expressed any interest. To date no updates of the Assembly guides for the 650 (which incoporate the upgrades) have been published.
Brenda

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