Just spent a pleasant couple of hours down in the shed, making the elevator rear ribs (including a modified one for the side with the trim tab), and elevator rear channel.

Very glad I've got a wood heater in the shed - when I came back to the house I noticed the cars were iced over and the grass was considerably more crunchy than usual underfoot!

Didn't take the camera with me but will take some pics soon.  I'll take the elevator spar to a sheet metal worker up the road to have…

My fuselage and finishing kits arrived yesterday by truck in a large crate.  I talked to the shipping company that morning and asked if I needed anything at my end to offload the crate.  They said the driver would have everything that's needed.  Wrong!

The driver's first question when he arrived was "do you have a forklift?".  Because the crate was 10+ feet long, his pallet jack would only lift one end and he didn't think he'd be able to turn it to get it on the power lift on…

Volunteer pilot Fred Sanford of Santa Barbara takes off with Katreena Steadman on Saturday during Take a Friend Flying Day on Saturday at Santa Ynez…

As I reported last January, N200BE was struck from the rear by a biplane during rollout after landing.  As you can see the tail of the Zodiac was chewed off by the biplane's prop.  You can read all about the accident on the FAA's accident website (01/29/2011).  What I wish to report is that as of 16 May, the little silver 601XL-B is airworthy again.   Thanks to Hampton Aviation in Mena, Arkanas, the tail of N200BE has been repaired.…

I recently bought a CH-750 in Oklahome and did all my local flying there, resulting in flight durations of two hours or less. Finally it was time for an "extended" cross-country from Cushing OK (CUH) to my home,Rockport TX (RKP). During the flight I found that I had essentially no fuel flow from the right-hand tank. The engine also quit a couple of times. I have reversed fuel tank caps to see if the problem reversed. With only half-full tanks it appeared the problem just went away. However,…

Hello builders and flyers!

In this picture, from left to right, is Jean (Zenith dealer from Brasil), Amadeu, friend and builder (CH 750), and I, waiting to receive my tail kit.

Behind us, Jean's Stol CH…

Currently on holiday in Bendigo (Vic, Australia) so dropped in to Bendigo Airport where Allan Barton has his beautiful 750 and 601.  Allan very kindly took me up for a flight in his 750, which has inspired me to redouble my efforts on my scratch-built 701.

The plane flew beautifully, especially impressed with the digital instrumentation and "professional" extras such as carby heat, boost etc.

The aircraft is surprisingly roomy with the bubble doors, which I'll be getting too. …

Finished my streamlined strut covers yesterday.  Didn't really see much top end performance increase, maybe 1 MPH.  Slow speed handling is much happier though.  Stall speed is down and the plane happily climbs at 30 MPH now where before it got a little mushy at about 40 before.

I have the 80 HP Rotax 912 UL, 70 inch Warp Drive 3 blade with nickle leading edges set to about 8 deg.  This combination gives me 78 MPH cruising at 5200, 5400 RPM on full power climbout and a top end…

I recently attended Quality Sport Plane's Open House and West Coast Zenith Builder Gathering on May 7.  Before the open house I visited Christopher Desmond and flew his new STOL CH 701 in the back country. I'll post photos and videos of…

Today’s pilot has powerful weather tools to help fly safely and sometimes more efficiently.  Now if your only going up…

If you look at the first picture of the side skin layout you will see what I missed. On one of the skins the rivet line for the front HT bracket is off by 16mm Not sure how it happened, of course I didn't discover this until after I drilled the line. 6 hrs work down the tubes! Ah the joys of scratch building. At least I can use the material for smaller pieces. Got the right side skin clamped up, and will remake a 2nd skin next weekend. Press on from there to the next screw…

Flying the Zodiac in Guadeloupe

Following are a few more great video clips flying in Guadeloupe.  This time, the videos are from a Zodiac CH 601, landing at the unique island airports.  The first one is landing the CH601 on the Terre-de-Haut Island, which is the largest island that makes up the "…

The photo assembly guides depict the door window plastic being installed sitting on the work table.  Absolutely put the door frame back into the jig before pilot drilling the window to the frame!  Finding this out the hard way:  door was twisted and would no longer fit in the cabin opening.  I was able to reposition the assembly in the jig and re-drill the pilot holes in the bottom edge and forward and aft door frame tubes and salvage the Lexan plastic.  The upper hinge and the door side…

 Hello all    Roger Dubbert has landed in sfo and is traveling to QSP to be a part of our open hanger day team he will be doing demo flights in our CH 750 so if you have not yet had the chance to meet Roger make your way to Cloverdale CA tommorrow May 7th he would love to see as many Zenith builders and flyers as possible. See our web sight www.qualitysportplanes  for the info you might need.

The Franklin's had a forced landing in Brownsville Texas on 10 March during a a Air show.

A fire resulted in both of them having 3rd degree burns. Amanda's were over 70% of her body.

She is still at the  Brooke Army Burn Center in San Antonio Texas,  A fly-in and family day fund raiser will be held at the Neosho Robinson Airport KEOS on 14 May 2011. There will be a Pancake breakfast, Silent Auction, Band and many more activities. All proceeds will go directkt to the Franklin's…