Stephen Larew

personal website — updated sporadically

Articles

  • reboot #4

    By my count, this is now the fourth ma­jor over­haul to my web­site. Maybe this one will last longer.

    My apo­lo­gies for all the broken links.

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  • Accuracy of ZAC Pieces

    I am curi­ous to see how ac­cur­ate the ZAC pieces are com­pared to the draw­ings. I would not im­me­di­ately con­clude that any dif­fer­ence was an er­ror on the part of ZAC. There may be good reas­ons for …

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  • Surprise Rudder Parts

    I star­ted the rud­der to­night. I have yet to look over all the parts in­cluded in the com­plete air­frame kit, but already I found sur­prises.

    Preview of the layout of rudder skeleton pieces.

    First, an ob­ser­va­tion: Zenith Air­craft did not choose low-residue easy-peel stick­ers when la …

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  • Kit Received

    It’s here! After three long days of travel, I have my ZO­DI­AC CH 650 kit from Zenith Air­craft.

    Packaged complete kit for the ZODIAC CH 650 in my garage.

    The plan was to travel to the Zenith Air­craft fa­cil­ity in Mex­ico, MO where I would pick up the kit and drive it home …

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  • Transporting the Kit

    I de­cided to travel to the Zenith Air­craft fa­cil­ity in Mex­ico, MO in or­der to pick up the kit. My plan is to rent a 12 foot Penske mov­ing van in Columbia, MO. While at the fact­ory, I hope to get a …

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  • Mission, Design, and Planning

    One of the first sug­ges­tions one re­ceives when choos­ing a design is to define and pri­or­it­ize the mis­sions for the air­craft. My two mis­sions in or­der are:

    1. Fly loc­ally for fun: hop around among the air­ports, en …

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  • Initial Impressions of the Drawings

    Front page of drawings for Chris Heintz's ZODIAC CH 650 B.
    Hope­fully that bend in the ZO­DI­AC CH 650 B draw­ings will flat­ten out over time.

    I re­ceived the draw­ings yes­ter­day after four days in trans­it via UPS Ground. The ship­ment in­cluded the draw­ings and a CD-ROM con …

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  • I Ordered a Kit Airplane

    Three view illustration of the ZODIAC CH 650.

    After a life­time of dream­ing and months of re­search and con­sid­er­a­tion, I ordered a ZO­DI­AC CH 650 B kit from Zenith Air­craft on Oc­to­ber 12, 2020. I have about three months to con­tin­ue plan­ning the …

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