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New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

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mmesa005(at)yahoo.com
Guest

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:38 am Post subject: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Hello All,



I am new to this group and am planning to start building a CH601XL

before the end of this year.



With that said, I have been doing quite a bit of reading and made a

phone call to Zenith to better understand the differences between

the QB and Standard Kits.



After my conversation with Sebastian I am leaning towards the

Standard kit. My impression is that the standard kit will save me a

fair sum of money and still provide features such as pilot holes on

wing, fuselage and other surface skins. The difference in cost will

also help towards my engine, avionics, paint funds.



I also plan to start with the tail kit and build from components as

I understand improvements to the kit are planned and I would like to

take advantage of them if and when they are released.



I live in Northern California (Redwood City to be exact) and plan to

build in my garage in order to maximize my time availability. I have

built  in the past but never completed an aircraft primarily due to

my desire to fly more than build. Fortunately I have most if not all

of the tools I need to build having purchased them along the way

durning my past building episodes.



Now that I am older (and hopefully wiser) I have settled on the

CH601XL and plan to take advantage being able to fly under LSA in

the future as my flying needs have become more about enjoying an

hour or two in the air vs. IFR, cross country flying, etc.



I am also leaning on the Jabiru 3300 engine and a budget glass

cockpit.



Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to

getting started and completing the CH601XL!



Regards,



Steven



  [quote][b]

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planejim(at)bellsouth.net
Guest

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:29 am Post subject: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Steven,

  

 After many years involved with EAA and  homebuilding all metal airplanes, I would like to pass on a couple of  general things that apply to building any kind of airplane followed by one  Zenith specific item. These are just the opinions of one person and not  presented as what everyone would say you MUST do. Just my experiences after many  years doing it!

  

 1) Once the kind of airplane is decided upon,  obtain the plans and construction manual ( in the case of Zenith,  additionally, the picture guides showing construction) and study them  thoroughly, as in build the airplane in your mind at least twice before  beginning.

  

 2) While studying the plans, ( again, specific to  ZAC ) note the the information that you need to do a certain part or assembly  WILL be found on more than one drawing. The sad part here is that, often the  drawings are not referenced to each other. My suggestion is that you write these  drawing to drawing references yourself, as you go along, using a color that  stands out. Anywhere you simply don't understand something ask ZAC or the good  folks on the Matronics List.

  

 3) Decide on the engine you are going to use as  early in the project as you can. This allows informed decisions to be made as  you progress with the fuselage, especially the front end and the instrument  panel. Order the firewall forward kit or at least get your engine mount in hand  when building up the firewall. Build to fit, not just to  dimensions.

  

 4) When the kit arrives, do a thorough inventory  ( check the actual thickness and size of the metal parts) and create a  shelving/storage system identifying the location ( on what shelf - number or  letter identity ) and write that location on the inventory sheet. You prevent  misplacing parts that way!

  

 One Zenith specific item that I have seen cause  trouble for builders and has resulted in cracks in attach fittings is the fit of  the horizontal stabilizer to the aft fuselage. My suggestion is if you build the  tail feathers first as many builders do, dont attach the forward vertical  horizontal stabilizer attach fittings to the front stab. spar until the aft  fuselage is made. Then you can locate the fittings where there is a great fit  with no preload.  I don't have a 601XL set of plans in front of me.  Otherwise I would use part numbers here. An alternative is to make a jig or  template to locate the fittings, but just make it to fit.

  

 I hope these few ideas will be of value to you as  you start on the rewarding journey of building a nice airplane.

  

 do not archive

  

 Jim Hoak - 601HD - Rotax 912UL - 527  hours

  

 ---

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Trainnut01(at)aol.com
Guest

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:37 am Post subject: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Welcome aboard.

  

 Carroll Jernigan

  

 do not archive

  [quote][b]

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Ron Lendon

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 685
Location: Clinton Twp., MI

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject: Re: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Welcome to the wonderful land of home building.  One other option that I took is scratch building.  Zenith has good detailed drawings and that is going to save me more money, and keep me busy for longer.  Everything is a trade off one way or the other.



I am having so much fun, hope you do too.

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_________________
Ron Lendon
WW Corvair with Roy's Garage 5th bearing
CH 601 XLB
N601LT - Flying
http://www.mykitlog.com/rlendon
Corvair Engine Prints:
https://sites.google.com/site/corvairenginedata/

p.mulwitz(at)worldnet.att
Guest

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 6:19 pm Post subject: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Hi Steven,



 Welcome aboard.



  I am also building a 601XL and plan to use a Jabiru 3300 along with one of the lower end EFIS units.  I think I may end up with one of the newer combined units from Dynon that has both flight instrumentation and engine monitoring functions as well.  Since my wife is also a Pilot, I may put one of those units on each side of the panel to allow for switching which side the pilot operates from.  For now my only contribution to the instrument panel is a Lift Reserve Indicator I made while waiting for the long lead time on the wing kit.



 I am also building from the standard kit.  The quick-build kit wasn't available when I started about 15 months ago.  I tend to work on my plane every day but only for an hour or two.  I am well into the fuselage and have completed the wings and tail section.  I had to build three wings since I messed up the first one - something to do with the alignment of the nose skin.  



 If I were to do it again I would still use the standard kit.  I enjoy building, but I don't want to go crazy trying to figure out how to make 12 foot long bends in sheet metal or spend a lot of time making wing ribs or welding.  I am happy to pay ZAC for those specialized efforts as well as the hunting down of proper materials.  That makes me a poor candidate for scratch building, and I agree with you that I would rather do the building myself  than pay for some "Outsourced" building of the basic structure which I believe is how the quick-build kits are done.



 I have found ZAC does a great job of supplying the correct materials and the cutting and bending seems quite good.  I wish I could say such nice things about the pre-drilled holes in some of the parts.  They may have improved recently with the new equipment, but I doubt the whole process has been changed enough to make the pilot holes work out well.  I think the problem is they drill pilot holes in the wing skin (for example) but the builder locates and drills all the holes for the ribs and rear channel.  That means the holes in the skin are not specific to the exact position of the ribs and rear channel.  This is not a show stopper,  I found by several trials I could minimize the "Error" in the pilot hole positions and wind up with a perfectly acceptable wing.  It just is not as easy as you might think having the pilot holes done at the factory.  (Indeed when I reordered parts for the third wing I needed I got the wing skins undrilled.  That worked out better for me than having the pilot holes in places that didn't match my ribs.)



 My last comment is this email list is a great resource for me and I am sure you will find it valuable too.   There are many posts that are best ignored, but every now and then there is a real jewel which makes the whole process worthwhile.



 Best regards,



 Paul

 XL fuselage



 



 



 At 09:38 AM 9/8/2006, you wrote:

 [quote]Hello All,



 I am new to this group and am planning to start building a CH601XL

 before the end of this year.



 With that said, I have been doing quite a bit of reading and made a

 phone call to Zenith to better understand the differences between

 the QB and Standard Kits.



 After my conversation with Sebastian I am leaning towards the

 Standard kit. My impression is that the standard kit will save me a

 fair sum of money and still provide features such as pilot holes on

 wing, fuselage and other surface skins. The difference in cost will

 also help towards my engine, avionics, paint funds.



 I also plan to start with the tail kit and build from components as

 I understand improvements to the kit are planned and I would like to

 take advantage of them if and when they are released.



 I live in Northern California (Redwood City to be exact) and plan to

 build in my garage in order to maximize my time availability. I have

 built in the past but never completed an aircraft primarily due to

 my desire to fly more than build. Fortunately I have most if not all

 of the tools I need to build having purchased them along the way

 durning my past building episodes.



 Now that I am older (and hopefully wiser) I have settled on the

 CH601XL and plan to take advantage being able to fly under LSA in

 the future as my flying needs have become more about enjoying an

 hour or two in the air vs. IFR, cross country flying, etc.



 I am also leaning on the Jabiru 3300 engine and a budget glass

 cockpit.



 Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to

 getting started and completing the CH601XL!



 Regards,



 Steven



 

 [b]

- The Matronics Zenith-List Email Forum -

Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:

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Ron Lendon

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 685
Location: Clinton Twp., MI

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:51 pm Post subject: Re: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Paul,



I read your post and I think I noticed that you drill holes in your ribs 

then matched them up to the outer skin?



Here is how I do that operation:



Pilot drill the skin first.



Draw lines on the ribs where the holes should go



Insert ribs and line up the lines through the holes in the skin.



Drill one hole through rib, add cleco (start with the silver)



Go to the next rib and repeat paying paticular attention to keeping the skin tight to the ribs.



Tip: you may need to stick a pointy tool in one hole to line up the one you want to drill.



FWIW

- The Matronics Zenith-List Email Forum -

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p.mulwitz(at)worldnet.att
Guest

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:33 am Post subject: New to the Group - Plan to Build CH601XL

Hi Ron,



I use a similar approach for attaching the skin.  The only difference 

is I mark the center of the rib flanges first and transfer the lines 

to set to locations of the pilot holes in the skin.



The problem I tried to describe is related to the fact that the ribs 

are attached to the spar and rear channel using "Random" 

alignment.  That means the actual location of each end of each rib 

varies a few mm from the "Ideal" location.  The holes drilled in the 

skin at the factory cannot allow for this randomness in the rib 

locations, so the pilot holes don't really line up exactly with the 

flanges on the ribs.



The issue is getting good edge distance on all the holes at the same 

time.  I found that a trial fitting of the skin to the skeleton 

allows measuring the distance from the pre-drilled rivet lines and 

the lines marked on the rib flanges.  After a little study it is 

possible to find an ideal offset from the marked lines to the 

pre-drilled skin so none of the rivets violates the edge distance 

rules.  That means a small percentage of the rivets are actually on 

the lines marked on the rib flanges, but it all works out OK.



I'm afraid this is one of those issues where a picture would work a 

lot better than words.  Alas, I didn't take the pictures at the time 

and my wings are all closed up now.



Best regards,



Paul

XL fuselage

At 11:51 PM 9/8/2006, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  Paul,



I read your post and I think I noticed that you drill holes in your ribs

then matched them up to the outer skin?



Here is how I do that operation:



Pilot drill the skin first.



Draw lines on the ribs where the holes should go



Insert ribs and line up the lines through the holes in the skin.



Drill one hole through rib, add cleco (start with the silver)



Go to the next rib and repeat paying paticular attention to keeping 

the skin tight to the ribs.



Tip: you may need to stick a pointy tool in one hole to line up the 

one you want to drill.



FWIW



--------

Ron Lendon, Clinton Township, MI

Corvair Zodiac XL, ScrapBuilder 


	


---------------------------------------------

Paul Mulwitz

32013 NE Dial Road

Camas, WA 98607

---------------------------------------------

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