Page 11 - Aerotech News and Review, Aug. 6, 2021

ZENITH, from 7
community airport where Heintz leases his headquarters and 20,000-square- foot factory, with access to two paved runways. And Zenith is the only com- mercial enterprise on the field, employ- ing a local economy-boosting 20 skilled people.
The boss says, “we do on average
one kit airplane per working day.” And he expresses little interest in following the footsteps of airplane makers who went corporate, got on the Wall Street imperative of quarterly goals over long range strategy, and ended up being merged out of existence.
for two years more at the time of the interview. Heintz said that for many people, the greatest joy and satisfaction comes from the creation.
While there’s set number attached to the cost of building a kit airplane, learn- ing to fly it with a sport pilot license and maintaining it, the range of costs fall well below the price for owning and flying a 20 to 40-year-old legacy air- craft from Cessna, Piper or Beechcraft. Prices for restored legacy aircraft can start around a quarter-million dollars, and pilots must have full private pilot certificates, requiring nearly twice the instructional hours for a sport aircraft pilot certificate.
Reduced instructional time for light sport pilot licensing reflects the restric- tions on flying an LSA: Night flying, banned; instrument flying, prohibited;
Licensed Realtor since 2010
I’m a Military Brat, and I wear that label with pride!
Photographs by Larry Grooms
paying passengers, not allowed. It’s all about VFR. If you can’t see it, don’t go is a kind of rule of thumb.
Although light sport aircraft aren’t especially fast and certainly not stressed to handle aerobatics, they do offer ad- vanced design and technological fea- tures that make them highly flexible. Zenith has been a leader in creating light sports aircraft designed to operate as STOL (short takeoff and landing) air- craft, making operations possible from farming fields, rural roads, and empty lots. Zenith’s most recent STOL air- plane, the STOL CH750 Super Duty, takes off after a 100-foot roll, with a Continental engine, and lands in 125 feet.
Asked how Zenith Aviation came to locate its factory in Mexico, Mo., Heintz pointed to the middle of a state
map on the wall. Ninety miles west of St. Louis, “We’re right in the middle of the country,” he said, adding that nearby Interstate 70 provides fast, reli- able shipping to customers across the country, and increasingly, abroad. And then there’s the family-friendly local
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