What I learned about the CH701

Victor Bravo requested info about the experiments I did on my 701. Maybe others are interested too so here goes. There turned out to be a surprising amount to know. Some here have already read about my experience on a couple other forums. I'll try to give it in depth as that's what this place is all about. I built mine strictly according to the plans except with 2 notches of flaps and with close attention to weight control. I don't have any experience with any other 701s but mine and no hands on with the 750 that VB mentioned. I expect my plane as originally constructed is representative of the other stock 701s with the Rotax 912s. Maybe a little lighter than many. Original EW was 592#. When i first got it going I was disappointed in the low speed flight characteristics, surprised really. It was unstable in pitch when flown on approach at anything below about 1.4 or 1.5 Vso. (Zenith recommended to me conversationally to fly 50 mph on approach...IMO that's good advice for the stock airplane and on mine with the 2 notches of flaps was about 1.5-1.6 Vso.) I expected it to fly really well down around 1.1 Vso. It didn't...large pitch excursions that were confusing as to the reason for a while and also it would go into high sink w/o any warning atall and so quickly as to be very difficult to arrest when say, in the flare. I bent the gear pretty soon, like a lot of others. I spent several years getting it like I wanted it...lots of changes and careful testing afterwards. I am confident in my results and conclusions based on how it flies now. Pretty darn nice at 1.1 Vso in still air. Predictable and honest. I throughly enjoyed the process and evaluating the results.
More later. Spencer