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…
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?…
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:…
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
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
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:
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
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...… Continue
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
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
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
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 —
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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
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
Since we have full access to the insides of our wings we decided that this was the perfect time to upgrade to new LED (light emiting diodes) lights. Note that this is not part of the Upgrade Package prescribed in AMD's Safety Alert and the FAA's SAIB - this is just an opportune time to install them (and also allows us to save a few pounds in the process).
This is the original Aeroflash-Signal anti-collision/position light assembly (nav/strobe light) on the left wingtip:… Continue
Picking up where we left off in our last post, here we drill and bolt the cap spacer 6-ZU-1-6 centered between the original spar web 6W3-1 and the new wing root doubler 6-ZU-1-2:
Then we start deburring and riveting some of our Upgrade Package additions permanently into place, starting with the back of the wing, riveting the Top Rear Spar Angles and… Continue
After having drilled out the rivets, we now cut out the original Top Spar Cap Angle (6W3-6) 1680 mm. from the inboard end to replace it with the 1/8-inch extruded angle 6-ZU-1-1, taking care not to cut into the rear upper spar cap (we leave the front upper spar doubler (cap 6W3-2) and the rear upper spar cap (6W3-2) intact):
We position and clamp the new Extrusion… Continue
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