Zenith Aircraft Company Demonstrates Line of Kit Aircraft at Spring Open House

By Carmelo Turdo

Zenith Aircraft Company of Mexico, Missouri, demonstrated their current kit aircraft models at their Fly Into Summer Open Hangar Day on Saturday. The current models of the light sport kit-built aircraft were on display and company pilots gave demonstration flights to potential buyers throughout the day.  Partially constructed kits were on display, along with the sub-structures, parts and instruction manuals for visitors to examine and discuss with company representatives to get a realistic idea of the kit-building process.  The event had the ideal combination of Midwest Aviation attributes - a kit plane factory opens its doors to anyone interested in seeing how their planes are built, lots of friendly employees showing off their great aircraft, constant flying activity of factory demo flights, a food ruck and a beautiful blue sky.    

The Zenith Aircraft Company was formed in 1992 to manufacture kit-built aircraft in their Mexico, Missouri facility featuring designs based on the Zenair designs from Chris Heintz.  In addition to the excellent design of the aircraft models offered in kit form, the company maintains generous customer service and building assistance programs that make the purchase and building processes more successful. According to company President, Sebastien Heintz, Zenith Aircraft Company sales have been steady, even during the recent economic downturn, due to the soundness of the aircraft kit designs and the customer support given to each new owner.  Advanced technology manufacturing techniques have made the parts relatively easy to assemble, and the numerous hands-on workshops give ample opportunity for new kit owners to assemble one sub-assembly at a time as they progress through the building process.  Each aircraft is designed to offer ease of assembly, fuel economy and flight performance.  

Several models of Zenith aircraft were on display near the hangar and later used for customer demo flights.  The Zodiac CH 650 is the stylish, sporty model with excellent visibility and great flight performance.  A variety of engines and instrument combinations may be used with the aircraft.  

The STOL CH 750 and STOL CH-701 offer short-field, off- airport performance with plenty of interior room for two and luggage.  The bubble door window offers excellent visibility and the beefy landing gear gives off-field capability with steerable nose landing gear. 

The Aero Experience was on site to visit with Zenith Aircraft and as an added bonus capture the demo flight with our friend, Travis Roberts.  Here are some views of the factory, display aircraft and demo flight in the STOL CH 750: