All Blog Posts (2,351)

Flying in the Caribbean: Guadeloupe

My brother Matt and I recently visited the island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies part of the Caribbean. Like many of you, I've enjoyed watching Zenith STOL float flying videos on YouTube: There are dozens of great video clips from Greek islands, the Alaskan back…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on June 11, 2010 at 1:00pm — 5 Comments

Rebuilding N7489Z

Does anyone know any information about N7489Z? It's the old stype 601HD with the straight landing gear. I just bought this aircraft and will attempt to put it back together and would like to write up a historical trail of how it got to me. There is reference to Allen Hahn on AircraftOne.com and I bought it from Roger Hemp in Washington State.

Added by Thomas Shaw on June 11, 2010 at 10:46am — No Comments

Patricia Trains for Bush Strips

This week, 21 year old Ghanaian pilot, Patricia Mawuli Nyekodzi, who builds and maintains the Zenith aircraft for Medicine on the Move, is training ready to start flying doctors and nurses into the remote bush strips as they get approvals in Ghana.


In the picture above she sets up 9G-ZAF for finals to Kpong Airfield - we start work on the 500m strip, then work on the cross-wind runway at 300m, then we have our own 200m strip at the Rocky Farm site a couple of…
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Added by Jonathan Porter on June 9, 2010 at 3:32am — 6 Comments

Slight delay

The way things work.....went to shut down the engine after the airshow and it didn't want to stop! Had to pull the throttle all the way closed and pull the choke.

Investigations shows a malfunctioning ignition switch, very intermittent, sometime it will ground out both mags and sometimes only the left mag leaving the right one active. Pulled the switch and made some adjustments, seems to work ok for now but have ordered a new one and will install it as soon as it…

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Added by Phillip Owens on June 5, 2010 at 5:54pm — 2 Comments

Newsletter #178 (May-June) Mailing now!



The May-June Issue of the Zenair Newsletter with DVD is now shipping to subscribers throughout the world. In this issue you will find stories on: Revamping of an older CH701, An excerpt from Chris Heintz's new book: Flying on Your Own Wings", Free Decal program for upgraded CH601XL aircraft, CH701 elevator Cable modification, an engine oil chip detector system with color…

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Added by Zenair News on June 5, 2010 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Young Aviator

Sorry Guys, I got so excited about finishing I forgot to tell you about the young man in the photos.

This young 4 year old is the son of a contractor who recently did some remodeling for my wife and I, his mom and dad brought him to AirFest 2010 because he is crazy about airplanes, and let me tell you he gets EXCITED!!!!

It has been a long time since I have seen a kid get so excited watching aerobatics and airplanes in general, while he was watching Skip Stewart flop…

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Added by Phillip Owens on June 1, 2010 at 5:27pm — 2 Comments

Finished and on display at SW AirFest 2010

Finally finished the long projest on Friday June 28th 2010! Put the prop on and wired it for the last time before flight testing, Not able to do any testing as the Airshow started on Friday also but we will be on display all weekend. Granted I am not as fast as the US Air Force Thunderbirds or the Canadian Snowbirds, I can't flop around the sky like Skip Stewart or make the graceful moves of the Big Red…

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Added by Phillip Owens on May 31, 2010 at 12:43pm — 1 Comment

"B" model designation for Zodiac CH601XL and CH650

With the advent of the upgrade package for the Zodiac CH 601 XL, owners

have asked for a way of easily identifying and marking an upgraded

aircraft, and a consensus quickly formed that a "B" model designation

was the preferred way of identifying an upgraded aircraft (applying to

upgraded Zodiac CH 601 XL and CH 650 aircraft models).



We've prepared quality cut-out decals for the aircraft: We encourage all affected builders who have… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on May 27, 2010 at 3:30pm — 6 Comments

Transition from HDS to HD

I built Zena Mae as an HDS speed wing. We now have over 350 hours as an HDS. Very nice, but as a taildragger with a a shallow angle of attack on the ground it requires that you land at a very fast rate of speed. So long as you are going asphalt to asphalt it is no problem. But coming on to rough dirt at 60mph is another matter.

I have wanted to convert to the HD for some time. Got all the parts last July, and spent November to March making the new wings. Added a couple…

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Added by Bill Massey on May 26, 2010 at 2:28pm — 2 Comments

750 Aileron Trim Tab

 

I made the tab out of .063 aluminum 3" X 14". I placed it a little in from the tip so that if it doesn't have enough effect in flight, I can put a larger one in it's place. To get enough room, I drilled out 3 rivets from the nose skin and put nut-plates in their place. Putting a nut-plate in the center bottom was a mistake. It interfered with the rod.I see now that the Servo could have been mounted a few mm over so that the rod and nut-plate would… Continue

Added by Jerry Bryan on May 25, 2010 at 11:00pm — 3 Comments

Cowling finally finished!

Well, the day has finally come, finished the cowling over the past two days, final fitting and a primer coat on monday and sanded and put on a coat of white as a base on tuesday. Photos are included. Now to put the prop back on, re-do the weight and balance and start testing. Testing will start with ground runs to check cooling on the ground and other items. First flight just around the corner after almost 11 years of part time work!

Added by Phillip Owens on May 25, 2010 at 3:18pm — No Comments

VDO 2 1/4 tach problem

The tach for my 912 is giving me fits. when it reaches about 3500rpm it starts spiking toward max rpm. as I increase throttle it will finally peg out. I have checked all the connections several times and I am not winning! Has anyone else had this problem? If so how did you fix it?
thx

Added by Dennis Johnson on May 21, 2010 at 7:18pm — 10 Comments

Putting on the finishing touches on the last item

Well, here it is Monday and we are finally putting on the finishing touches to the last item in the project, the cowl. Kent took two days while I was away and worked on the air intakes, today we put the finishing fiberglass on the openings. Now all we need is to let the resin harden and we can do the final install.]

Installed the bottom section today and ran the wires to the oil pan heater and the battery maintainer, put the holding…

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Added by Phillip Owens on May 17, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments

CH601XL Upgrades with Magnificent Machine LLC (tricks of the trade)



I just got back from a week at First Light Aviation Group in Livermore, California with Rick Lindstrom & Rich Vetterli. I went down to help them with the Upgrades on their Corvair powered CH601's. We had a great time and made excellent progress on both airplanes.

Rick Lindstrom will bring his airplane up to our booth at the Arlington Fly-in this year July 7th- 11th, so feel free to stop by and see his bird and talk to us about the… Continue

Added by Brady McCormick on May 17, 2010 at 2:12pm — 3 Comments

FAA's NKET visits the Zenith factory

Earlier this week we were treated by a two day visit by the FAA's newly created National Kit Evaluation Team (NKET) to evaluate and determine that the STOL CH 750 kit, as produced by Zenith, meets the intent of the "51% rule" and to allow an amateur-builder to register the plane as an "amateur-built - Experimental" aircraft (meeting the "major portion" requirement of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations part 21, Certification Procedures for… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on May 13, 2010 at 8:00pm — 3 Comments

Zenair in Spain and at AeroSport 2010

AeroSport is one of the major annual fly-ins in Spain for recreational sport aircraft and ultralights. The event took place last weekend in spite of precarious weather and volcanic ash that kept airline traffic grounded over most of the country. Many light planes still flew in to AeroSport in Iguadala/Barcelona, including a dozen Zodiac models (CH 601 HD, HDS, XL and a CH 640). Both Zenair representatives for Spain had a display… Continue

Added by Michael Heintz on May 11, 2010 at 8:00am — 2 Comments

STOL CH750 AULA

It's Official, the STOL CH750 can now be registered as an AULA in Canada. CAN-ZAC has worked with Transport Canada to have the newest Zenith Kit added to the list. http://www.tc.gc.ca/civilaviation/general/ccarcs/advancedullist.htm

This means that you now have the choice in Canada of either an Amateur built or Advanced Ultralight registration for your STOL CH750.

At present…

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Added by Mark Townsend on May 10, 2010 at 10:15am — 1 Comment

Upgrade complete on another 601XL-B

After aprox. 70 hours and $600.00, we "Got-r-Done". Thanks to my friends and Brother Bo we are back in the air. We were short A5 rivets, too. Another Zodiac builder came up with rivets over the weekend to keep us popping w/o a break in the action. I bought the angle drill attachemnt this blog recommended and we installed new Sonex rubber bushings on the Jabiru engine mount. Got a local tow truck operator to haul for us this time.

As for the upgrade, our a/c had no signs of wear or…

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Added by Mark Ertz on May 7, 2010 at 1:25pm — 5 Comments

Modified elevator cable routing for CH701

Problem: as left/right flaperon is applied, path length of the cable changes dramatically, because the top of the elevator control horn is located about 12” off the axis of rotation of the flaperon torque tube.



With cable tension set to 20lbs at neutral stick, I was seeing 10-15lbs at full left (very slack) and >35lbs at full right stick. This was tight enough to cause the elevator horn to bend!



Solution: I have added a pulley right behind the lower access hatch, on the… Continue

Added by Sebastian Dewhurst on May 5, 2010 at 4:31pm — 9 Comments

STOL CH 750 x 2

This was the ramp in front of the Zenith factory earlier today: two burgundy and gray light aircraft visited today:

The high wing is Mike Schlichtman's STOL CH 750 and the other is Randy Schlitter's Rans S-19 LSA.

Mike's nice STOL CH 750 is nearly identical to our factory demo version - both are powered by the six cylinder Jabiru 3300… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on May 4, 2010 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

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