All Blog Posts Tagged 'zodiac' (26)

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Pilot magazine Cover Story: Zenith CH 650 Flight Test

The May 2012 issue of Pilot magazine features the sleek Zenith CH…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on April 25, 2012 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Article Reprint: Safety Is No Accident: Zenith’s aircraft are high-utility contenders. So how’s their record?

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.

Kitplanes magazine, November 2010 Issue…



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Added by Zenith.Aero on March 1, 2012 at 4:30pm — 1 Comment

CH 650 Kit Evaluated by FAA

In a letter dated June 24, 2011, Terry Allen, manager of the FAA Production and Airworthiness Division, stated that the Evaluation Team determined that the kit will “allow an amateur builder to meet the major portion requirement of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations part 21, Certification Procedures for Products and Parts, § 21.191(g),” known as the…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on June 28, 2011 at 5:03pm — 4 Comments

Call for entries: CH 650 Paint Scheme Design Competition

 

As we're completing our new CH 650 B demonstrator plane, we're…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on February 9, 2011 at 4:00pm — 5 Comments

Rudder Workshop and Demo Flight

After the January workshop I am now the proud parent of a bouncing baby rudder! It may not be cosmetically perfect, but I would be willing to fly with it.  I learned a lot at the workshop, and had a chance to fix some mistakes w/o it being a disaster.  The basic skills were easy to pickup, and it was helpful to have the Zenith folks nearby for questions. I pretty much feel like I can build a Zodiac 650B.  The biggest challenge is probably clearing & heating the garage and setting up a…

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Added by Rebecca Anne Shipman on February 2, 2011 at 10:06am — 5 Comments

A story, about a story, about a story.... worth reading.

I read the following story (about a story in the New York Times, no less) about a Zodiac builder and his love of flying. Isn't it great to read some good news about aviation and flying, especially in a non-aviation publication?…





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Added by Sebastien Heintz on August 11, 2010 at 8:30am — 1 Comment

Oshkosh 2010 Follow-Up

Despite a very wet beginning, we had a great time once again at AirVenture and really enjoyed meeting both existing and new builders from around the world. Following is a summary of our week:



Heading to Oshkosh from our factory in Mexico, Missouri: The STOL CH 750 as seen from the STOL CH 801:…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on August 4, 2010 at 10:00am — 6 Comments

Zodiac CH601XL-B Flight Test Report

We recently had the chance to give Steve Flattum the opportunity to test fly our factory demonstrator Zodiac CH 601 XL B (upgraded model). Steve flies for one of the major US airlines and has logged more than 20,000 hours. More importantly though, he has a passion for light aircraft, and he has flown more than 100 types of aircraft (from ultralight to supersonic) and performed more than 20 first flights. He holds a professional pilot degree and is a… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on July 7, 2010 at 1:00pm — 5 Comments

"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

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

Weight & Balance 417SX

First I want to start by saying some stuff was missing. One set of seats and wing root fairings. I made my seats and the wing root fairings will be Carbon Fiber, maybe 10 pounds total. From the beginning I concentrated on building light. No wheel pants. Jabiru 3300 with a custom FWF. Grove gear. Wood propeller.



Second, I had Arnie the A&P at U76 use his certified scales.



Empty weight: 686 pounds

Left wheel: 231 pounds

Right wheel: 219 pounds

Nose wheel: 236… Continue

Added by Jake Reyna on April 21, 2010 at 6:00pm — 8 Comments

Flying the Upgraded Zodiac

We've had lousy flying weather in Mexico, Missouri lately (which is really not that typical), so when the sky looked OK this morning Roger and I pulled out the upgraded Zodiac XL for a pleasure flight...

Here's the video:



I hope you enjoy it as much as we… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on January 27, 2010 at 4:30pm — 14 Comments

Part 26: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: It flies!

It was a cold and windy day... but clear and sunny, so we flew our beloved Zodiac XL demonstrator airplane this morning.

Today's flight comes after the downtime of installing the Zodiac XL upgrades which we've been chronicling here over the past five or six weeks. All of you that have been following this series will agree that the upgrade package kit that we… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 28, 2009 at 4:00pm — 8 Comments

Part 25: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: It's now all back together!

We've been finishing up the aircraft these past few days, continuing on where we last left the project.

We've re-installed the flaps and all the controls in the aircraft, as well as reconnected all the wiring and fuel lines.

Above, Steve and Roger finished riveting the last rivets back in...…

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Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 24, 2009 at 2:30pm — 6 Comments

Part 23: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: Re-Installing the Center Spar in the Fuselage

Continuing on where we last finished, now we re-install the "upgraded" wing center spar section into the fuselage and position additional fuselage doublers:



First we installed the beefed-up Front Wing Uprights (6-ZU-2-6). This replaces the original Wing Uprights (6B13-1) with the heavy duty .125-inch Front Wing Uprights. We are forced to drill a new row of holes parallel to the original row for the new… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 14, 2009 at 4:00pm — 7 Comments

Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: Riveting and Re-Assembling the Center Spar

I've now added the photos for the last post on riveting and re-assembling the center wing spar section. Below is the upgraded center spar section, ready to return to the fuselage:



As previously mentioned, Roger Dubbert from the Zenith factory will be attending Gus Warren's Zodiac CH 601 XL… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 9, 2009 at 3:49pm — 3 Comments

Part 20: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: Aileron Mass Balance

Continuing where we left off yesterday, now we install the mass balance to the ailerons. Since this was mandated by the UK LAA earlier this year for Zodiac XL owners there, we used their drawings (which was engineered and tested by the LAA), as specified in the AMD Safety Alert.



The aileron mass balance consists of an 18-inch arm… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 3, 2009 at 5:30pm — 7 Comments

Part 19: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: Working on the Ailerons

With the main wings done, we now focus on the aileron upgrades.

The aileron upgrades consist of three separate items: Aileron gussets (65W2-5 and 65W2-6) on the aileron ribs, L-angle stiffeners for the aileron trim servo, and finally, aileron mass balance. Above, the right aileron is shown. Below is the left aileron.

Our demonstrator Zodiac CH 601 XL airplane has the original "hingeless" aileron system - many customers have the hinged… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 2, 2009 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Part 18: Installing the "Upgrade Package" to our Zodiac CH 601 XL: Working on the Second Wing

Now we're working on finishing the second (left) wing.

We debur and rivet the aileron bellcrank support channel and stiffeners, and the rear channel doubler...

And we bolt in the wing root doubler 6-ZU-1-2 and rivet the nose rib angles (6-ZU-1-3 and 6-ZU-1-5) in place...

...and we cleco and rivet the nose ribs in place. Note that in the photo we are… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on December 1, 2009 at 11:30am — 4 Comments

Part 12: Installing the L-angle stiffeners to the rear bottom wing skins

Now we install L-angle stiffeners to the rear bottom wing skins:

This is an easy job with the top rear skin removed. We trim the L-angle piece to length, pre-drill it, and then drill and cleco it into the bottom rear skin:

We'll share the position measurements and exact details with the final drawings. The Upgrade drawings are nearly finalized (which will allow us to then release and… Continue

Added by Sebastien Heintz on November 20, 2009 at 4:30pm — 10 Comments

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