Took advantage of a beautiful March Saturday to complete my 750 rudder. Today, I drilled and cleco'd the nose skin, trimmed the excess aluminum, disassembled everything, primed the contact areas, re-cleco'd and riveted the whole thing together. Now I need to save a few pennies and purchase the tail kit. But that can't happen until after I pay my taxes!!

This is a continuation (See the previous post for Day Four)

Day #5: Zenair’s “Wing-Building Program” provides builders an opportunity to…

I saw an article on AOPA that said Rotax was starting production of the 912iS model which is fuel injected.  I looked around on the web for additional information but found nothing.  Anyone got any information as far as specifications and pricing?

This is a continuation (See the previous post for Day Three)

Day #4: Picking up from the previous day’s work, Barry continued with the fuel tank installation. First he cut strips of cork and then he stuck them wherever needed all around the tank. The purpose of the cork is to secure the tank snugly in its place, ensuring it cannot come into contact…

This is a continuation (See the first post for Day One and Two)

Day #3: First job on Wednesday morning was drilling through all the pilot holes on the main wing. Generous use of clecos ensured…

Yesterday morning (Monday), Lon Boehme, his brother Val and his son Barry pulled in at the Zenair factory in Midland with their 12 ft. trailer in tow. They had just spent the weekend driving in from Alberta (34 hours!) for a promising week: a Wing-building program, a rudder workshop, and a trip home six days later with a partially assembled STOL CH 750 airframe kit in the back! Here is a short running summary of the experience...…

I am two weeks into working on a quick build kit at Quality Sport Planes in Cloverdale CA.  I continue to be very pleased with the help I receive and with availabilty of special tools and knowledge of Doug.  Every day I get more done and am getting closer to the point where I can move  the project to Alaska to install the engine.  I recommend this company to anyone who may want to keep things moving along on their project.

Drilled and ceco'd the rear rudder skin today. Also slipped on the nose skin but ran out of time before I could do anything but tape it down.

Very informative visit with Charles about his Corvair powered 601XL.

Fuel Pumps mounted on divorced elev bellcrank bracket. Decided to use Zenith supplied low point drain between header tank and pumps. Fittings on order to make final connections.

The following article was published a few years ago in Kitplanes magazine.  While all of us may not agree with all of the author's observations, it's shared here to help Zenith builders, owners and pilots increase their awareness of safety issues in operating their homebuilt kit plane.  We invite you to share your comments below.

We received some reports that pages 6 and 7 in the current issue of the newsletter (#188) were left blank by the printer!  These two pages are reproduced below:…

PLEASE tell me the spars are the hardest (physical) component of this plane to create.  After 286 solid AN5-6 rivets my left shoulder, neck and lower back are aching.  I know there's a few more to go... some longer ones on the spar root fittings, a few in the cockpit, not to mention those pesky little 3-3 suckers on the trailing edge... but I'm over it.  After this plane I never want to see a solid rivet again, let alone set one.  I'd have a ceremonial "chucking the bucking bar" in the dam,…

Decided to cut down the header tank. It just didn't fit well, and seemed too large/heavy for it's mounting location. New total length is just shy of 19 inches with 8 inches in diameter.

Volume of a cylinder = 2 x pi x R x length, so 2 x4 x pi x 18= 452.38 cubic inches/ 231 (cu in per gallon)= 1.96 gallons.

When my warning light comes on, I will have one…

My Favorite Passenger

After several weeks of cold weather and business trips, I resumed work on the rudder this weekend. Sprayed Zinc Oxide primer where needed on ribs and spar. Cleco'd everything back together and then got to use my pneumatic riveter and air compressor compressor for the first time. One bad rivet had to be drilled out and re-done, Next weekend, the skins.

1 3/4" spacers for the header tank. Made from all the bits and scraps of 6061 from building the aircraft. Poured round ingots in greensand and machined. Probably 6061-T0 , but acceptable as spacers.

Installation of low fuel warning indicator in header tank. I incorporated a baffle "box" around the sensor in the hopes of eliminating the low fuel light flicker seen here:…

1/8" steel brackets were supplied with my header tank. They weighed almost a pound each( 15.4 oz). Both brackets modified with stainless band clamps weigh in under a pound(13.6…