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Newbie questions, which easier to fly a Kitfox or a CH 701

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motoadve

Joined: 23 Apr 2009
Posts: 123
Location: Seattle

Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:15 am Post subject: Newbie questions, which easier to fly a Kitfox or a CH 701

Im thinking of buying a plane , want something durable, easy to fly, reliable, good glider in case of engine quit, and slow stall speeds



Im looking into the Zenith CH 701 or maybe a kitfox, for my needs what do you guys think is best?

I want a Rotax 912 in the nose on either plane.



If you guys think kitfox is for me which model?

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JetPilot

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 1246

Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 4:56 pm Post subject: Re: Newbie questions, which easier to fly a Kitfox or a CH

I also looked at both the Kitfox and the CH-701 when I was deciding which plane to buy.  I have a friend with a Kitfox Series 4 with a 582 and a friend with a CH-701 with the Rotax 912.  I already have a rotax 912-S so that was a given for me no matter which plane I built.   After looking at each plane and its performance, the Kitfox wins, by a HUGE margin.



The Kitfix is faster, more agile, and will run circles around the CH-701.  The Kitfox is also every bit as good at STOL as the Zenair 701.   Now you may ask how is this possible given the CH-701's obvious STOL design, and that is simple !  The Kitfox has a much higher aspect ratio ( more efficent ) wing.   If you look closely at the CH-701, you will notice that it has very short wings, exactly what you do NOT want if you want to take off and land slow.  You will also notice that the CH 701 wing starts to disappear more than a foot from each side of the cockpit, and there is NO wing at all above the cockpit on that plane.  So the Zenair CH-701 takes an already too short wing, and gives up another 5 feet by not continuing any kind of airfoil over the cockpit, with the wing airfoil disappearing into nothing on where it meets the fuselage.   So don't look at the published wingspan on each airplane and say " The CH-701 is not THAT much shorter ", look at the Zenair's published wingspan and take about 5 feet off of it for a realistic comparison to other airplanes.  To compensate for this, the CH-701 designers had to make a ridiculously thick and inefficient airfoil to enable the plane to take off and land slowly, the ONLY thing that wing is good at is flying slow....  Unfortunately, this unreasonable thick wing makes the plane is draggy, slow, has gives it horrible glide, and is just a real DOG in the air.  STOL is the only thing the Zenair CH-701 is good at. 



The Kitfox has a very efficient wing that has low drag at higher speeds, and has enough wingspan to slow down and fly well at low airspeeds without resorting to a ridiculously thick and inefficient airfoil.  



As far as being difficult to fly, you would master either airplane given proper training and hours of flight time.  The Kitfox is much more enjoyable to fly than the CH-701 as it is lighter on the controls and more agile.   After doing some research, the choice to buy the Kitfox over the Zenith CH-701 was easy, the Kitfox was better by a huge margin !!!



Mike

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