This video is over 24 minutes long but for those considering a light sport category STOL airplane, I think it's worth the watch. As I plan the build out on my kit I find myself somewhat overwhelmed by the number of modifications that builders of these little guys recommend. This video has an unmodified CH701 doing just about anything I'll be likely to want out of a LSA. I wonder if some of the problems one hears about regarding the Zenith line come from over thinking things and not fully understanding the concept of controlling rate of descent with power. Who knows. Anyway, watch and enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKlbrsZwEA4

I have one of these. It's been languishing in my shop for a few years now, It was complete with a 912. and even though it had been flying, I did not consider it airworthy. I had two other planes to fly so the motivation wasn't there , I just sold one of the them and now it's time to get off my ass and finish fixing this thing, besides I'm getting sick of looking at it.

Let me tell you of my first impressions of the 701.. POS. Mine is made entirely of .016 sheet, seriously, not much thicker than beer can aluminum. It is the king of oil canning. In fact I have actually witnessed rivets spinning around on the wing of a one example while it was idling. I went for ride in that one after a few prayers were mumbled and got some stick time. I did really like the center y stick, good design. light and simple. The handling and control forces were nice and light too. I wasn't impressed with the rear wing spar cabin carry thru. It is a joke compared to any other aircraft. Made up of one piece of braked flimsy .016.

Flight wise The thing glides like a man hole cover, That's what gives it it's stol appeal, Don't think of looking too far from straight down for a landing spot if the engine goes tits up. and as mentioned before. More sound is generated from every panel oil canning than the engine, It's like standing next to the woofers at a really loud rock concert, so wearing good hearing protection is essential.

Even though it might make a good bush plane by virtue of it's short t/o and landing finesse I don't think the lightly built and fragile monocoque construction could stand much of the rigors of real bush flying. Let's just say, if what happened to the Cub in Alaska from an enraged bear happened to a 701, it would need more than a few rolls of duck tape to get it back in the air, it would never fly again.It would be scrap, unrepairable. Zip disk the engine off and take the panel would be about the salvage. In fact ,all it would take is, a few punches from a teenager with a bad attitude to pretty much make it unflyable.

Now that all the negatives have been expressed, all I can say is that it's success in the market is undeniable. There are oodles of these powered beer cans flying all over the world. That's the reason I got it, that and the price was too good to pass up. Plus The thought of re living my nose pusher days was appealing, Tail dragging is getting so routine.

To the mods, Yes I have a few I'll just list

This is an older model that had a thin walled 11 gal gas tank right behind the panel. umm no thanks. It's like having a built in automatic crematorium that could be set off by the slightest prang. That was the first thing to go, and made way more room for ridiculously long avionics (with modern technology why are icom radio panel mounts 3 feet long? ..slightly exaggerating)

To replace lost go juice storage. I put in the optional 10 gal tanks to compliment the 5ers on each side for a total of 30 gals.

There are quite a few 912's with m/d's on the stator. Something about rotting wiring. I checked mine and could scrape the insulation off with my finger nail. Rotax did supply replacements for a limited period, but that's over now. A new Stator is $1300. I decided to just remove the stator and replace the wiring harness myself with Tefzel. It was an easy job.

The structure of the eppinage is the biggest source of oil canning, so I got a metal shop to brake up some vee stringers to rivet onto the exterior, much like how the Savannah is, should quite it down a little and reduce rivet stress.

Also putting in L shaped stringers running lengthways in the top of the wing to give the upper panels some rigidity. The lower ones should be stabilized by air pressure. All that skin flapping is hard on rivets.

Im Gonna fly it with the slats for a while, but I see a few pilots are pulling the slats and putting on VG's. They claim they are getting equal slow flight performance without the top end drag of the slats.

I'm thinking about eventually filling in the space around the slats, effectively increasing the cord of the wing. This should move the MAC forward. which is a good thing cause this thing is a little nose heavy and has a big assed battery waay back in the tail to compensate.
I'm gonna run this idea past Zenith. I hear that they are open to discussing design modification

Over all it should be a good airplane to fly. and It's always fun flying something new.

Here is a partial list of the differences between your airplane and my kit:

What is the main differences between the two version to produce the
increase in gross weight capacity?

Increased thickness of spar root fitting, bolt one size up, extra doubler at spar root, decreased rivet pitch, increased thickness of rear channel, increased length of reinforcement for front and rear strut attachments, increased thickness of front strut attachment point, increased thickness of undercarriage attachment (used for strut attachment), increased thickness of firewall reinforcements and gear channel, different bungee, fuselage reinforcement near wing attachment, reinforcement of floor, increased thickness and length of doubler near front strut attachment.

Nobody builds them without skin stiffeners in the wings and fuselage any longer. Mine has them. I didn't hear any significant oil canning when I flew one but then again without hearing protection I suppose one would be likely to go deaf from the wind noise before the oil canning took a significant toll.

The reason I posted the video is that THIS pilot makes a power off short approach (like I was taught in the Colt back in the olden days) and then adds power to arrest his sink rate rather than flying it on to the runway like a Navajo. With an engine out, hopefully the prop will be stopped and we will have a little less drag and a little more energy to work with. He also claims he's doing 90 mph indicated in cruise. I think that many builders rip the slats off to increase cruise speed and because they are uncomfortable flying the airplane in the region where the slats are most effective. Still, the longer wing mod and the beanie mod appeal to me a bunch. The video is instructive in showing how the stock design performs when flown within it's design parameters.

When you pile yours up you may want to gather up the wheels and brakes and all the rod end bearings too. Just kidding