Alissa’s First Flight in a Zenith 650

All the years working with Zeniths, Alissa hasn’t had the opportunity to fly in the low wing 650. Tiger graciously flew over this morning to familiarize her with the aircraft and flying. Looks like we need to keep working on our 650!

[@stolaircraftsuyanto9728]

Alisa is so cool😀

[@theworshiptraveler6709]

Love the Viking Engines! ❤️ Love Zenith Aircraft!❤️

[@carlmccall7198]

Great... awesome.... i love my 650 as well

[@whatintheworld532]

Alissa you had me at SMOOTH! Good to hear a comparison to the Super Duty. I had gotten a closeup view of a couple of these at the Texas Zenith fly-in last week and think they are cool. 👀

[@Laserdoc905]

Nice!!!

[@cduemig1]

Man those Vikings are smooth. Definitely considering it for my Glastar or S-21 build, haven’t decided yet.

[@eggenfellner]

Have fun making the decision, both great aircract

[@lesb3481]

Great flight! I've always really liked the Zenith 650, I just wish it had a more adequate useful load so I could have considered building one. It will be very interesting though, to see one with a 150hp engine on the front in the future and what sort of performance that provides.

[@Mike-01234]

656 lbs with 2 people is not bad it's target is light sport if you don't need light sport then I would go with an Vans RV. Problem is lot of us in our 50's can't pass the ridiculous FAA medical unless we are willing to shell out $1000s in redoing a bunch of test's that were done years ago already by other doctors at the time we had a medical issue it all resolved. The FAA is unreasonable and illogical with their requirements for a class 3 medical cert. Were stuck light sport have to deal with 1320lbs for now.

[@dalemed]

I love my 650 with a Viking 110, even at full gross. I can't imagine what 150hp would be like.

[@rmm9676]

Dale - How many hours now in your "original Viking" powered 650? Any videos with you flying on KZbin?

[@dalemed]

I have 380 hours flying my 650. I posted a utube video 5 years ago entitled WingTufts.

[@rmm9676]

Less work and less building = Private Pilot Certificate for Alissa !! From passenger to PIC.

[@CooterScooters]

Looks like it hops right up with that 130. I’m interested in hearing the results of 150 testing. Get to building y’all!

[@eggenfellner]

We have some other videos that show him flying and it REALLY performs, he took things subtle due to me being in the aircraft. At one point we were doing true airspeed at 141 mph, burning less than 5 gallons and only at 4700 RPM. It was a nice change to see a little bit more speed :)

[@CooterScooters]

@@eggenfellner I built a rudder at the Zenith factory this spring and took a flight in their 650. I knew before I started I wanted a Viking engine. Based on having Honda cars in my youth, and the abuse I put them through, I feel like it’s going to be a perfect fit.

[@thierryilboudo5648]

“Sebastian is going to see this” 😂🤣

[@twest344]

5:50 She's a low-wing gal!

[@nccountryboy76]

Could the 650 support the Viking 195 turbo? Or is that too much?

[@eggenfellner]

Not at all, the 130 and 150 engines are already a lot of engine for the airframe. At that point you are just adding senseless weight and cost with no gain.

[@lynnkramer1211]

Is a Zenith engine similar to a C85-0200? It sounds more like a Rotax clone? Is this LSA eligible?

[@eggenfellner]

I’m a bit confused? This is a Viking engine, and quite a bit different as it is based on a Honda base with a gear drive. They are commonly used for light sport aircraft/LSA

[@tinolino58]

Lots of perfomance! Love it! The 650 needs a mutch better looking canopy. It’s designed by a 5 year old 🙈