Zenith CH 650 RG (retractable landing gear) custom-built by Pedro Luengo, powered by a 100-hp Rotax 912 ULS engine with a DUC ground-adjustable three-blade propeller, and custom dual yoke controls.
I've been in aviation over 50 years. Corp,cargo, charter pilot, A&P. Grew up with experimental aircraft. This guy did an excellent job. Very clear he knows his stuff. My hat off to you Sir.
I got so excited when this popped up I'm my notifications. I hope to be building a Ch650B this winter. I thought Zenith was unvailing this at Oshkosh and going to offer this as an option.
Am I wrong to think this airplane also has a BRS system as well. Look at the video at 9:26 mark. There are attachment running from the top of the aft cockpit to the wing spar/fuse section.
The forethought and engineering for everything is a 10 except for one thing. What is the hardware you are utilising to get gear up and down? At times it looks hydraulic with a bad "sequencer valve" (absence of smooth actuation) or weak electric hydraulic pump, and has anyone experimented with the new high end electric ecentric rams for drives for gear? Very nice though.
how much gas does RG usually save and how much increase in speed for same throttle, just curious generally, about 15% more speed and 20% fuel economy? just my guess
I've just recently begun to watch Zenith CH 6xx videos. This is a really nice one. I wondered about the low hp and added weight of the RG, but the performance looked good. The glass panel looks quite nice. The switches are good, but the power handle always stands out as awkward. Too tall and the pilot has to reach over it for dials/switches/knobs in front of it. The RG isn't terribly smooth, but the dash lights set-up is good. Another thing that stands out is where the fuselage meets the tail. That could be better. Though it may be no problem, I always wonder, in this day of man-made materials, if the old-fashioned flat-bottom fuselage is best. Is it aerodynamically very good? I didn't mind the music since there wasn't human speech.
Adjustable prop control is what Light sport needs even if it's automated with airspeed would really improve performance. Retracts are nice until they fail.
There's a Zenith (601HDS, IIRC) in Central FL with a variable-pitch prop. He always used reverse thrust to back into his parking spot at pancake breakfasts! Lol
Don't forget guys, light sport has different meanings in different countries. Weight, number of passengers, engine horsepower all have different limits in other nations.
Spain follows EASA rules, 600 kg (1322 lbs) gross weight, max two passengers, non-turbine engine, 45 knot stall in landing configuration, and non-pressurized cabin. There is no speed limitation as there is in the US. www.easa.europa.eu/faq/19386 I'd still like to know how much this one weighs.
In the builders group, during the build phase (4 years ago) Pietro wrote "The weight will not rise from 30 pounds to higher with the entire landing gear retractable. That includes the hydraulic pump. Another 8 pounds of controls."
Nice work on the retractable landing gear, the CH650 has a need for speed. Could you please tell me the name of the saxophone song at the beginning of you video please, it goes great with the video, cool music for a cool airplane, thank you.
It can still be experimental amateur built and be over 1320 lbs gross weight but it can’t be flown in the sport category in the US , he would need a full PPL to fly if the airworthiness shows the max gross over 1320. You can get a light sport kit but build it outside the sport weight as long as your good no one being able to ever fly it under sport class rules. Another example, you can’t fly at night with a sport class license so why pay for all the expensive nav lights, well if you have a private pilots license you can fly a sport class plane at night and even if IFR conditions. So the privledges and restrictions are often a combination of pilot certification and the aircrafts registered gross weight and equipment. If he were to go with the DUC in flight adjustable pitch prop, this plane would also require a complex rated pilot, which I bet few sport pilots would have.
Good music ...few Utubers get the tracks right ... If your going wall to wall music with no dialogue it should be something like this , what you have done , Its astonishingly un irritating ... Of course the plane is cool as hell .. I know only too well the effort and engineering that went in to that
I would be worried about the low VNE of this aircraft at altitude. 124 knots down low, i would imagine up high that 140 knot VNE wouldn't be that hard to exceed.
Who cares as long as it happens every time, now That’s important! I’m just impressed he came up with this. I guess I’m seeing glass half full and you see it as empty, but I’m sure you could have done better lol
@@Rif_Leman Nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the LSA mission, which is to provide a relatively low cost, simple platform for particular experience levels and pocketbooks. Your vehement anti - American hatred has obviously turned your brain to mush..
This would have been the perfect airplane, but the pilot sits to far aft of the leading edge. If the pilot and passenger sat in front of the wing it would have been perfect.
@@TheOwenMajor Yep I know it. I'm a pilot so I'd better know it. Else I could end up a spot on the ground some place. Weight & Balance can be worked out to achieve what I was saying. Designers are to just to lazy to resolve the issue, because it's just easier to opt for the easy way of copying previous designs with slight modifications. It's tried and true to have the humans sit on the wings along with the fuel storage. It's just one more headache a designer doesn't have to solve. I'm left with no choice but to teach myself CAD so I can address the issue myself. I can be done, and already has been. Just not so much in really small planes.
@@Rico11b I'm actually interested in the means to which you can move the occupants forward. That's obviously going to be alot of weight forward of the center of lift, it doesn't seem like a great solution to counter it all with the stabs.
@@TheOwenMajor Na, it will be a matter of moving everything possible aft of CG. Probably most electronics boxes will need to move aft. It may also mean adding some length to the fuselage. It'll take some creative thinking, which is why so many aircraft designers avoid the whole thing. Like I said it's already been done before, but most of those are commercial products. Having 6 or 12 seater is out of the question for small plane private pilots, especially in "light sport", but the concepts can certainly be scaled down quite a bit. It's why I've started this journey to figure all this out. I KNOW there is a way it can be done, and done safely.
