Hey Jon, Sorry I’m late to comment. So happy you took a job with Zenith. That little single seat would be great with the Yamaha Apex engine. I would make it a light trailer queen, just for competition. You already have a great cross country 701 and now a 750. I’m impressed with the Yamaha for competition, but I would stick with UL Power for long distance travel in the 750. Just my opinion. I hope you and the family have a great 2023..
Single seat for competition only. Narrow powerplant like the Yamaha Apex naturally aspirated like Project Kitfox at 160hp or Turbo like Steve Henry at 300.
My 2c: Single seater for competition for sure, trailer helps with spares, tools and tuning on site. I think given the weight savings and the novel nature of the design you will likely want to keep making changes and adjustments and a focus on its performance for competition means you don't have to make decisions that clash with cross country quality of life.
Bullet proof single seater for x-country explorers who usually fly alone but want rugged ultimate STOL capability with good range and enough storage for basic camping gear. It's the one big gap in the growing STOL popularity. Zlin did produce the Shock Cub Ultra but it's larger and a two seater came in at about 170K. Make a similar or better plane with a 20-100 mph envelope with tremendous climb that is more affordable at 100K +/- and there would be great demand. The Merlin is a single seater, but isn't that rugged and doesn't have the type of STOL performance a single seat STOL could have with the Rotax 912/914. Have it in tail dragger with tricycle option. Yes, I think you should start your own company!
Nice Video about your progress you´ve made with the 750 SDX and the single seat 701. 👍 For the 701 as engine in Europe Rotax is very big maybe a 915 Turbo can fit or you´ve got some nice engines from edge performance. For the brakes wheels i will take the Matco ones delivered with the zenith kit. but there are options from Beringer like Jon Hakala was using them on his 701. Should only be a few days until the 701 kit arrives which my wife and me was ordering. Unfortunately that didn't work out for us with the match drilled holes. But I wish you that the project with the match drilled holes for the 701 will soon be finished. I also wish you a happy new year 2023 and above all health, because that is the most important thing. All the best and many greetings also from Catrin from Apulia / Italy
I would like to see something like a turbo normalized corsair go into one of these. I to build an all metal tandem with a corvair and had thought using zenith parts would make it easier.
If you go electric, you’ll instantly regret it. To get any performance it will be extremely heavy and the run time will be very short. Also if you ever fly in cold temps, it will drastically reduce run time even further. Your battery will also degrade much faster than a properly maintained engine will wear out.
Competition. 3 cylinder yamaha would be awesome. Even Apex. Be hard pressed to beat the power to weight ratio! Kick Henry's butt! All in fun But you can bet he's trying to do the same thing.