Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Sanders on October 29, 2013 at 7:11pm

Add me to the list of turned off customers. I had a cheque ready to go in an addressed envelope but I made the mistake of asking a "dumb" question and when I responded to Jan's attitude in kind he kicked me off his yahoo forum. Only a fool or a rich man would give someone that much money for that kind of service.

This is my first plane, I'm a complete novice, I need someone who will help, not insult so I saved my money and went with someone who wants to teach me, not berate me.

I'm glad there are happy customers for the Viking, but I won't deal with someone like that.

Permalink Reply by George Thompson on October 30, 2013 at 9:13am

Hi Paul,

How was your experience with Zenith?  I am like you,  a first time builder.  I spent a lot of time looking around before I chose Zenith to buy parts from.  I chose them because they had a workshop where they taught you the basic building skills.  I got to meet most of the Zenith shop employees there,  and everyone in my family participated as builders.  We also got demonstration rides.  

The Zenith people were very nice to us and as a result I decided to get a tail kit which I am currently building.  I am having a lot of fun doing it.  I found my buying experience with Zenith to be great.  They delivered everything to me very quickly,  and they have a great engineer over there that is really helpful when you encounter issues.  

Zenith also help me to machine some riveting tools,  which they did in a prompt and quality manner.    I have also been using the homebuilt.com videos to help me along,  which were very helpful to me.

I also met the ULPower representative while I was at the factory.  He was very nice to us and showed us all of the details of their engines and fully answered my technical questions.   It seems their engine is a bit more expensive than most,  but very well supported by Zenith since they will sell you the engine directly as part of a FWF kit that has all parts and instructions on how to build it.

I am considering the Rotax and Jaburu options too but I have pretty much ruled out doing any kind of auto engine conversion.

Permalink Reply by Paul Sanders on October 30, 2013 at 9:26am

Hi George,

Like you I've found Zenith mostly very helpful though I've had a couple of support emails where I basically got called an idiot for not being able to follow the plans. Not very helpful but at least I didn't get kicked off the website. And I've also had great support when I've been stuck.

As for engines, I'm probably going Rotax. Everyone says they got the crate, unpacked it, followed the instructions to the letter, started it up and they were done. No endless support calls, fabricating bits to try and get things to work.... I could do that if I knew how, but I don't, so it is worth the extra $$ to me. Of course I'd love to pay less but I also want to spend time flying, not spend time debugging engine designs.

Paul

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