Links/Resources

Links are divided into

o Aviation Related
o Nothing to Do with Aviation
o Resources

Zenith Aircraft Company - The official factory web site. Zenith also manufactures a STOL aircraft kit (the CH701), a twin-engine variant of the Zodiac (the Gemini CH620), a certified production airplane (the CH2000) as well as aluminum aircraft floats. Zenith's site is actually one of the best designed and complete sites of any type I've seen on the web.

Aviation History - Fun Facts & Photographs - Dedicated to the explorers of heroic feats. We have aviation photo galleries, aircraft information, stories, and more.

Landings - Many links and resources, including a search engine for NTSB accident reports.

Sport Flyer's Internet Resources - A list of many companies and sources of aviation information on the net

Zenith-List Home Page - An email list for Zenith builders, run by Matt Dralle.

Van's Aircraft Page - Producer of the RV series of aircraft

Europa Aviation Home Page - Producer of the Europa, an advanced composite design from England.

EAA/FAA Aviation Safety Data Site - Just starting. Should be good source of information when it gets going.

Philip Polstra's personal page about his CH601HDS project.

Roger Kilby's personal page about his CH601HDS project.

Don & Sharon Honabach's Zodiac page about their 601HDS project. They have included a nice section on 'tips and tricks' to building.

Babylon5 Home Page - An outstanding SciFi television show.  1996 Hugo award winner.

Eric's Scuba Page - The best Scuba diving page for the Puget Sound area

Cartalk - The home of Click and Clack on the internet.

National Rifle Association - "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." - 2nd Amendment, Bill of Rights, United States Constitution.

Circular Index from the FAA.   Of particle interest will be
AC20-27D, Certification and Operation of Amateur-Built Aircraft
AC65-23A, Certification of Repairmen (Experimental Aircraft Builders)
AC90-89A, Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook:

Current FARs, Federal Aviation Regulations (plain text) direct from the government.

 CAD Drawings for Zodiac Instrument Panel

These drawings are in DeltaCAD format. DeltaCAD can be downloaded for free (its shareware) from Midnight Software, Inc. DeltaCAD can also convert the files to DXF format, although some information is lost in the conversion.

 
• PANEL.DC - This file contains the outline of the panel including the obstructions behind it for the fuel tank mounting brackets. This was made by actually measuring the instrument panel supplied in my kit.
• INSTR.DC - This contains many different types of instruments you can copy onto your panel. This works best if you copy this file into the LIB directory of DeltaCAD. You can then get at it from the File/Library command in DeltaCAD.

UPDATE: The new version 2.4 of DeltaCad uses a symbols file instead of templates. Copy this file to the 'symbols' directory of DeltaCAD and use File/Symbols to get at the instruments.
• PANEL6.DC - This is my panel layout, if you're curious.

This is also in DeltaCAD format, see the above note.

• ELECTRICAL.DC - This is my electrical system such that it is currently.  If I did it again I think I would probably do away with the vital bus.  Maybe.

This is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. If you don't have Excel but are running Windows 95/98/NT, you can get a free Excel file viewer from Micro$oft.

 
• WB.XLS - This is the preliminary Weight and Balance data for the plane. This is for the unpainted plane, no fuel, full oil & water. I have not yet installed some of the interior fabric, but I can't imagine it being more than a pound or two more. The initial weights were taken with the main battery on the firewall and the alternate battery under the passenger seat. The 'corrections' section shows my moving these batteries back to the end of the baggage compartment.

The .doc version is a Microsoft Word 97 version, and contains better formating. If you don't have Word 97 but are running Windows 95/98/NT, you can get a free Word file viewer from Micro$oft.

 
• Checklist.doc - The checklist I'm developing. A work in progress. The right-most column of the table contains 'hidden text', so it won't display on the screen unless you go to Tools/Options/View and select 'hidden text' under 'non-printing characters'. This way the printed checklist copy for the plane is kept to 6 x 8.5", while still preserving my 'reasons' column for the larger 8.5 x 11" operating manual.
• Checklist.html - HTML version. The formatting is somewhat screwed up.