I have not posted much in the last few years, preferring to lurk in the internet shadows and follow the adventures of others. I still answer questions quickly in PM sent through the web site. The 2005 CH601HD rests quietly in the hangar its systems "mothballed"..... ignored the past 2 years. Like an unfaithful boy friend my fancy had turned to another aircraft. A 1976 Citabria GCBC a friend with too many aircraft was generous enough to loan me. I learned to handle the evil "tail wheel" gear,…

Congratulations to Deane Philip for his first place finish at the 2021 New Zealand Bush…

Roger and I recently returned from central Florida where we held a hands-on kit aircraft building workshop and hosted a Zenith fly-in gathering together with Wheels and Wings. What a productive workshop and fun time meeting with new and existing Zenith builders and flyers!

Day One: Rudder workshop class and demo flights (Friday, January 24, 2020): Watch the…

Latest update on my DIY EFIS, now includes COM, NAV, and XPDR via SDR (Software Defined Radio) 

After a lot of prep work on my lifting sling, I finally was able to flip my wing upside down.

Overall I am happy with the results. I had complete control of the wing at all times.

After I get a chance to use it few times and fine tune my process, I plan to make video showing it in action.…

I just received my generation 4 engine today.  I also received the firewall forward kit provided by Arion aircraft the US Jabiru dealer.  Everything looks great and it seems to be a very complete kit.  I will post more details at a later date, but the Jabiru engine and FWF kit combined seem to be the cheapest combination after the Viking engine and certainly the cheapest for a new engine.

Top skins and nose skin is in place drilled to A5 with strips and plates in place as well as L angles rear of strips and connecting I/b gear box rib and adj. nose ribs. (I should shim these where they attach to the skins?) I cut out excess nose skin, will trim at some point in the future. Getting ready to tear down and debur. I am now struggling with the…

My son and I completed the rudder workshop and flew to Cruzer.  Great aircraft.  Ordered my first kit which ships Jan 23rd.  Cn't wait to start the process.  Along awaited dream to build nad fly my own aircraft.  I'm Jazzed

Friday: hands-on workshop  |  Saturday: Zenith fly-in  |  Sunday: Viking Engine workshop…

Flipped over the center wing and pulled the top skins from storage.  Drilled to A5  the internal rear ribs to the top skins, Using the strips for templates I finished drilling the top skins to A5 which fitted the strips to the ribs in turn to the skins.  Suggest that anyone working toward this particular part of the project to be sure to do the internal three rear ribs first, then the strip area of the top skins and o/b ribs next, and finally the rivet pitch to the  o/b ribs behind the strip…

Getting closer 

Some time back, I replaced the Bing carb on my STOL 750/Jabiru 3300 with a Sonex/AeroConversion "AeroInjector" throttle body carb.  The AeroInjector's throttle body slide operates in reverse to most other carburetors in that the throttle cable pushes in to close the slide and reduce the rpm's to idle and the cable pulls the slide open for full throttle.  Typically, most builders use an AeroConversion throttle quadrant to reverse the cable direction.  By attaching the throttle cable below the…

In part 4 of making the flaps and ailerons, I finally bend the flap skins.

Also an additional video doing a detailed measurement and plot in CAD of

a bend radius

I have been lax at keeping up with my blog entries but I haven't been idle. I have been dealing with a number of issues created by the factory and by me.

I backtracked a lot of rivet work when I discovered the factory installed L angle on the spar at the gear box stations blocked me from back riveting the flanges of the channels to the spar. This also required ordering AN3 bolts to replace the solid rivets I removed.

I was missing the two lower plates that are…

Bungee have a 5 years replacement life cycle based on the color code on the bungee. The CH601HD has a nose gear bungee, and 2 bungee / main gear. All bungee 1080HD. Other builders have asked me how I replace main gear bungee. Pictures are worth a thousand words... and I hate typing.…

Parts 2 and 3 of making flap construction.

Part 2 is devoted to figuring out some problems with the test sections.

Part 3 covers making the rib forms.

Coming soon will be part 4 which will be bending the full size flaps.…

This last weekend I flew to Dayton, OH (from southern Wisconsin) with my Dad to visit my brother - 258 NM. On the way back the Hobbs meter went over 100 hrs. Whoo Hoo!

This is Tangier Island we flew to in August.  It's a quaint village struggling against time and climate change and sinking into the bay.  We had a group of four aircraft for this almost 70 mile trip.  There are many great restaurants and normal tourist shops.  If you go it's short and has many frost heaves creating a roller coaster landing and take…