Zenith STOL CH 750

Overview

The Zenith STOL CH 750 is a two-seat, high-wing short-takeoff-and-landing kit aircraft from Zenith Aircraft Company of Mexico, Missouri, built from a Chris Heintz design. It is sold as an experimental amateur-built kit, and in its standard form it meets the FAA definition of a light-sport aircraft, which puts it within reach of sport pilots. The performance figures Zenith publishes are based on the 100-hp Continental O-200; the airframe accepts engines from 80 to 160 hp.

The CH 750 is built for slow, short, and rough. All-metal construction on fixed tricycle gear, with full-span flaperons and fixed leading-edge slats, gives it a takeoff roll near 100 feet and a landing roll near 125 feet at light weight. It cruises around 87 knots, which is unhurried by cross-country standards but typical of the STOL class, where the design trades speed for the ability to work out of places most aircraft cannot reach. Zenith publishes a single stall figure of about 30 knots, the slow-flight minimum with the slats and flaperons doing their work; the clean stall is a little higher but still well below any sport-pilot limit.

Key Features for GA Buyers

• Short-field capability from a roughly 100-foot takeoff roll and a stall near 30 knots, which opens up grass strips, sandbars, and back-country fields closed to faster aircraft.
• Sport-pilot eligible in standard form. The clean stall sits far inside the MOSAIC 59-knot gate, and the standard kit also meets the older light-sport definition outright, so a sport pilot can fly it without a private certificate.
• Owner-built and owner-maintained. As an experimental amateur-built aircraft, the builder who completes it can hold the repairman certificate and sign off the annual condition inspection, which keeps recurring maintenance cost low.
• A wide engine envelope. The 80-to-160-hp range covers the Continental O-200, the Rotax 912 family on auto fuel, UL Power, the Jabiru 3300, and the Honda-derived Viking engines, so a builder can match power and fuel type to mission and budget.

Trade-offs

• It is slow. An 87-knot cruise makes the CH 750 a local and regional aircraft rather than a traveling machine; a long trip is measured in days, not hours.
• You have to build it, or buy one someone else built. A kit is hundreds of hours of work, and a used example carries the build quality and maintenance discipline of whoever assembled it, which a pre-buy inspection has to establish.
• Light and draggy in wind. A STOL airframe with large slow-flight margins is worked harder by gusts and crosswinds, on the ground and in the pattern, than a heavier and cleaner airplane.
• Experimental, not certified. The standard CH 750 carries an experimental airworthiness certificate, which limits some operations and shapes its insurance and resale profile next to a type-certificated trainer.

See Also

• Zenith STOL CH 750 Cruzer – the cross-country sibling on the same airframe, trading short-field ability for speed and range. Compare
• Zenith STOL CH 750 SD – the heavy-lift Super Duty sibling, with a bigger wing and a 200-plus-horsepower engine. Compare
• Zenith STOL CH 701 – the smaller original STOL, for a builder who wants the lightest, shortest-field airplane in the family. Compare
• Cessna 150 – the classic certified two-seat trainer on the same Continental O-200, for a buyer weighing a kit against a standard-airworthiness airplane. Compare