
| My wife and are both pilots and currently have a Cessna TR182 N6391S, that we don't share well (we both want to be the pilot). This summer we took it back up to Canada to go fishing. It made a 15 hour car ride a 3.5 hour trip, a real time saver. The problem is that once we got to Nestor falls we had to leave the Cessna behind at a deserted strip to board a Beech 18 on floats to fly in to the lodge. This got us thinking.... We need a float plane for low and slow fun exploring the back country lakes, as well as the mountain strips of Idaho near where my parents are purchasing some property. We spent some time looking at the production aircraft that would fit our desires and found that they would all require selling our beloved Cessna. So we started looking at the home built options. Large projects are nothing new for Brooke and I, as we bought a run down house then completely rehabbed it in two years, replacing everything except the wall studs. So we decided to embark on building an airplane. We had narrowed it down to the http://www.zenithair.com/ 701 or 801 for their short field take off and landing characteristics, long term history, and respected designer. . At first we were leaning toward the 801 until we decided that for reliability reasons we would build two 701's instead. The pricing worked out to be about the same as a quick build 801 and if we would have a problem in the back country one could always fly the other out. That night 2 rudder kits, and a zenith recommended tool kit was ordered online. Here is the story that follows..... |