Tuesday, July 29, 2014
THE OFFICIAL DAILY NEWSPAPER OF EAA AIRVENTURE OSHKOSH
www.AirVenture.org
PHOTO BY PHIL WESTON
Vega is rising star at AirVenture 2014 By Frederick A. Johnsen
It was a business plane before it was a bush plane; an airliner before it was an antique. It’s the only flying Lockheed Vega, and it’s here at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2014 in the military markings of a sister ship. The quirks of this classic monoplane go beyond its past lives and present markings. It has a duralumin metal fuselage, while most Vegas were all-wood speedsters. CONT. P23
Jonathan Porter calls off the roll for the first group of One Week builders.
The clock has started By Randy Dufault
W
ork is underway on the One Week Wonder, a Zenith CH 750 Cruzer that will transform from a crate full of parts into a complete airplane in less than one week’s time. “This is a very special day for us,” EAA Chairman Jack J. Pelton said as he started a seven-day countdown promptly at eight o’clock Monday morning at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2014. “We are getting back to our roots and we are going to showcase how people can get into aviation at affordable prices, and also personally build their own airplane,” he added. Just after the clock started, Pelton exclaimed, “Let’s get this thing built!” and gave the order to open the crates.
The two-seat light sport-qualified Cruzer is Zenith’s latest design. The kit, like many others now available, has all its rivet holes pre-drilled. However, unlike many other kits, the holes are drilled fullsize, eliminating the need to drill out and deburr each hole prior to setting a rivet. The kit uses blind rivets, a technique requiring less training and experience to install than traditional bucked rivets. Once the airframe parts were out of the crate and sorted, work started on each major component. “We will be working on things in parallel,” said Sebastien Heintz, president of Zenith Aircraft Company. “We are going to start the tail, one wing, and the fuselage on Monday. Monday and Tuesday, we’ll build the first wing, then Wednesday
and Thursday build the second wing. By Thursday, we should have all the parts done and on Friday it’s going to look like an airplane.” “It is a standard kit,” Heintz added. “It is not a partially built airplane. We didn’t do any cheating behind the scenes at all, other than the fact that we made sure we have a plan in place.” Power for the project comes from a Rotax 912 iS engine. It too was uncrated Monday morning and is already assembled into a complete firewall-forward package, ready for installation into the airframe. Dynon is providing the avionics and instrumentation. Much like the powerplant, the panel is already assembled, prewired, and ready to install into the airframe at the appropriate point in the process. CONT. P12
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