Looking at the completed box makes gives you a sense of progress.  Then I looked at the Home Built help videos and realized I was only working on disc 1 of 4 for the fuselage.  It always feels like you are almost there and you have just begun at the same time.  As they say 90% done and 90% to go.

Three days short of three years since I picked up the tail kit from the freight depot I have a flying airplane. Everything went according to plan, no surprises, thanks God. 

Can someone help me with the elevator cable bungee info? I can not find anything on it in the Photo Assembly guides. I saw mention of it in the homebuilt help video. I have bungee material that was part of the finishing or controls kit. 

Hard to believe my 601XL is going on it's 9th year of service.  I have the condition inspection slated for April to get it done right at the beginning of good flying weather,  This will be my most expensive annual as the main tires are due for replacement.  With 830 landings on them, the tread is basically gone and I would expect threads to start showing soon.  The planned Saturday breakfast fly-out was a scratch due to weather, but the low cloud deck was just high enough at my airport to…

I am about to put a deposit on a CH750. in the Baltimore area. Is there an "Inspector" out there who I can hire to can look this plane over for me?  It looks good to me, no damage history, cylinder compressions are good, but I don't know what else to look for.  I love this plane and want to buy it.

Thanks, Bill

Have CH601HD's with Rotax 100HP engines faired well in cruise and climb performance?

I finished doing a loose fitup check of the main spar, ribs and rear spar. I wanted to convince myself that

everything was going to fit together nicely before I started drilling holes and doing other things that could not be

undone. The ribs were drilled and clecoed to the main spar, but the rear spar was held on with cleco clamps and supported with 80/20 framing. The first pic is a shot of the right wing. The left wing was similarly setup.

To make sure that the…

You're invited to join us at our annual "Fly In To Summer" Builder Fly-In Gathering on Saturday, June 17, 2017, at the Zenith Aircraft Factory.…

Based on the success of the STOL CH 801-HD as a commercial spray plane (a.k.a. the CH-8000), Zenair has quietly been working on an even larger and more capable STOL aircraft than the currently available HD model. Among other modifications, this new CH 801-EX has 4 feet of…

I am currently working my way through adding stiffeners to rear ribs 1-4. Below are a few pics of how I am doing this.

I made a gage strip for laying out the end locations of the stiffeners. That is seen clamped to the edge in the first pic. Small 90 degree vee blocks are handy for transferring lines around edges. Another handy item I recently purchased(and should have done sooner) are the orange soft jaws for the vise. For what needs to be done here, having the ribs held up…

Stabilizer skeletons that is. I've updated my build log. :)

http://justplanechris.com/skeletons-in-the-garage/

Working on my Elevator Balance Horn and the Lower Horn.  Both of them have a Gap caused by the Center Channel Strap.  I was thinking of inserting a .040 shim in both to eliminate the gap (see pictures in the other post.  Still haven't quite figured out getting them in the same post).  What do y'all think?

One area of flying that has very little written about is "haze".There's a lot of stories about flight into IMC that usually center around flying into clouds, rain storms or black hole night experiences. 

However I have learned that haze can be a subtle and deadly situation. The real problem is that aviation weather reports do a very poor job of identifying and reporting on it.

Yesterday was a classic example. I was flying home from Pine Mountain Lake in Northern…

A propeller where you can have it all.  

• Maximum climb for those local flights and grass strips
• Maximum cruise when you fly from paved airport to paved airport
• Adjustments are made in a few seconds

This adjustable propeller is legal for all pilots to operate.  No special skill is required and the entire blade rotate to the desired pitch, rather than twisting the…

So many ask the question of how to build an aircraft that a light sport rated pilot can fly.

Here is the answer to one typical speed question:

The speed of your completed airplane is dictated by it's overall configuration, not the engine. While it is true that Viking would like to show you how fast it could go, it is not true that you will automatically have this speed if you need to comply with a lesser speed.

The pitch of your ground adjustable propeller will give you…

As I have continued on with building my plane and having the space, I wanted to make some more benches. These pictures were made last year. What makes these a little different than other benches is that I decided to make the benches modular. The tables are 4x4 in size instead of the usual 4x12 that is often made. I made a 4x12 when I first started building, but that one has been retired in favor of the 4x4 benches. Even if someone had more limited space, using 4x4 tables could make easier to…

I've started assembling the fwd horizontal stabilizer parts. Got the spar, doublers, attach brackets, and ribs drilled. Time to debur and rivet! :)…

Hello all,

 I'm getting ready to build my 650 wings and thought maybe I'd get some steel beams as shown in the guides. 

 Are you all using them? Where did you get them?

 If you aren't using them, what are you using?

  I just used 2x4's for the rudder, stab and elevator.

Thanks!