Reaching a Zenith: Hangar Days return

Company hosts event next weekend

Posted 9/11/22

Kit aircraft manufacturer Zenith Aircraft Company will be celebrating its 30th anniversary at its annual Zenith Homecoming/Open Hangar Days & Fly-In beginning Friday and will wrap up the …

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Reaching a Zenith: Hangar Days return

Company hosts event next weekend

Posted

Kit aircraft manufacturer Zenith Aircraft Company will be celebrating its 30th anniversary at its annual Zenith Homecoming/Open Hangar Days & Fly-In beginning Friday and will wrap up the following day at its factory at the Mexico Memorial Airport in Mexico.

The annual fly-in event is a homecoming for many Zenith Aircraft customers from across the Midwest – and the country - with many Zenith customers flying into Mexico, with their completed Zenith kit aircraft. Those parts were made at the Zenith Aircraft factory.

“We started these events as an open house for the Mexico and surrounding community because many in the local population were unfamiliar with light aircraft, and not familiar with how they are built, so we held Open Hangar Day to allow the local community to see what’s inside the Zenith Aircraft kit factory,” Sebastien Heintz, president and owner of the Zenith Aircraft Company, said. “Over the years, more and more of our out-of-town customers started to show up at our open houses so we started to do more activities for them, to the point where we now do most of the activities for our customers as opposed to local community visitors.

“There are a lot of different things for all visitors to see and do here at the airport at the Homecoming.”

The Open Hangar Day & Fly-In events include two full days of activities, including educational aviation seminars and workshops, an aircraft show, contests, social activities, as well as a Zenith banquet dinner on Friday evening, and BBQ dinner with awards presentations on the 17th, and also factory tours, aircraft building and flying demonstrations with various activities for all visitors.

On Friday, educational seminars will begin in the morning and take place throughout the day featuring various airframe - the aircraft fuselage, wings and Tail - engine, avionics seminars - with suppliers like Lycoming engines, Dynon Avionics, UL Power, Garmin, Continental and more participating.

The seminars provide the individual aircraft kit builders an opportunity to learn more about the choices they have in building and finishing their own aircraft.

There will be additional seminars on flight safety - transition training and first flight preparedness - and representatives from the insurance industry such as Avemco and Sky Smith Insurance will be joined by others.

Friday will conclude with the Zenith Aircraft banquet, held outdoors in  front of the Zenith Aircraft factory with planes on location.

The next day will feature a myriad of events including:

• Tours of the modern Zenith Aircraft kit production facilities.

• Zenith aircraft show, judged by the public with many categories and prizes.

• Seminars on Zenith aircraft kit construction and maintenance.

• STOL and other flying demonstrations at the airport.

• BBQ dinner and awards ceremony starting at 4:30 p.m.

There will also be hands-on building projects in the factory, Zenith Aircraft presentations as well as representation from more than a dozen vendors.

The Zenith Aircraft Homecoming has become a popular annual event for Zenith customers and aviation enthusiasts to fly-in and visit the factory at the Mexico Memorial Airport.

“We probably get about 500 visitors over the two days of the Homecoming - most of them from outside of Audrain County,” Heintz said. “Since many of our customers fly in with their airplanes, the turnout will depend somewhat on the weather.

“We’ve had visitors from as far away as Europe and Africa, but most are from within a few hundred miles from here.”

For 30 years, Zenith Aircraft Company has been manufacturing easy to build and fun to fly aircraft kits designed by aeronautical engineer Chris Heintz.

Zenith Aircraft is the No. 1 brand of light sport aircraft in the United States, based on actual FAA registrations numbers.

Zenith Aircraft produces kit aircraft for the DIY sport aviation market, with short take-off and landing capabilities demonstrated by the STOL CH701 and STOL CH 750 models, as well as economical two-seat cross-country cruisers, the high-wing Zenith CH 750 Cruzer and the sleek low-wing Zenith CH 650.

With builder choices in mind, all Zenith aircraft kits are designed to offer builders a wide variety of suitable engines, avionics, and custom kit options.

Zenith Aircraft builders typically build their own airplanes in 400-500 hours from a complete kit, or can choose to build from component kits, quick build kits, or scratch-build from blueprints only.

The STOL CH 750 Super Duty, a short take-off and landing (STOL) airplane with a rear jump seat, is the latest model from Zenith Aircraft.

The annual Zenith Open Hangar Days have proven to be a way for Zenith Aircraft’s customers to meet with each other to share their love of building and flying, and to get to know the factory staff while also learning about building, maintaining and flying their airplanes. While area hotels sell out well in advance of the event, there will also be camping available at the Mexico airport.

The whole event takes many hands-on deck according to Heintz and help is always welcome.

“We invite volunteers and vendors to participate and help us with this event,” Heintz said. “Overall, this is very much a grassroots event with a rather informal schedule. We use local vendors, and the Zenith factory will be open for production on Friday where some of our staff will be producing aircraft parts and answering visitors’ questions.

“We have a core group of about six staff members - plus volunteers - to organize and run the event.”

Further details are available on the Zenith Aircraft website, with a detailed seminar and events schedule: https://bit.ly/zen22-homecoming.

- Alan Dale contributed to this story


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