Zenon for sale in SA

PTKay

Gold Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
Messages
3,160
Location
Poland
Aircraft
Socata Rallye
I would like to help our friend from SA to sell his Zenon:

FLYNOTE said:
My Zenon RST is for sale. 190 hrs.
Absolutely Immaculate. Full house with all possible extras.
All custom comforts added.
Extra long range fuel cell with factory internal fuel pump to tranfer
additional 70 liters into main tanks during flight!
Comfortable 6 hrs endurance with reserves.
Equiped for long range " safaris".
Turbo boost control for max boost during change in altitude etc. etc.
Absolute state of the art Zenon. One of a kind.
Selling with fresh mpi. One owner, one pilot since new.

I have now put my name down with Braam Hechter for a Zen1 which will be my third Xenon.

Asking R800 000 plus vat for quick sale. ($89.000)

Full history in photos from first day of construction in factory till fully assembled in RSA
available on www.Microlighters.co.za forum. Follow Xenon links from page 26.ZU RGB.

http://www.microlighters.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5037&start=420

This Xenon was at the Stellenbosch and Gariep Jambories and if not sold before then,
it will be at the Upington spree later on in the year.

Johan Stemmet. 011 8881774 office hours.

file.php


file.php
 
Last edited:
Beautiful Machine!!
Wonder the cost of shipping to USA..........??
Does anyone know if that is even possible? Could this ship be registered in USA and fly legally?

THanks!

John
 
Beautiful Machine!!
Wonder the cost of shipping to USA..........??
Does anyone know if that is even possible? Could this ship be registered in USA and fly legally?

THanks!

John

Really!, I was just wondering the same thing. I don't know if it would be different to buy used already stateside or shipping it here.
Anybody?
 
Anybody know if this craft is still for sale?
I'm hearing the cost to ship to USA would be under $2000.00 US
Only other question is, can it be bought here and registered to fly??

Makes one want to move to SA!
 
John,

try to contact some of the Zenon owners here on the forum.
They can certainly tell you more on how to put it together here again
and register it.

Mike Bantum, the Aviation Artur Trendak dealer in the US should be
certainly helpful. His e-mail: [email protected]

Paul
 
There is three Xenons and one Zen1 for sale at the moment in South Africa for between $ 75 000 and $ 89 000. Might be worth it for shared shipping cost.
If anybody interested let me know and I will contact all the owners to get the process going.
 
Last edited:
You cannot ship any Xenons to the US and get them registered. It does not matter if they are used and registered elsewhere or new from AAT neither would be allowed.

There are 10 ELSA Xenons in the US and one Experimental - your only option for a fully built Xenon would be one of those on the used market.

If and when AAT offers a kit you could build one of those but at this point the Xenon does not have a letter of acceptance from the FAA stating that the Xenon kit meets the 51% rule. The one Xenon that was built from a kit did get accepted so that is a good indication.
 
If you are going Experiment you just need to show you built 51% of it or am i missing the experiment part of this?
 
....
If and when AAT offers a kit you could build one of those but at this point the Xenon does not have a letter of acceptance from the FAA stating that the Xenon kit meets the 51% rule. The one Xenon that was built from a kit did get accepted so that is a good indication.
The letter of acceptance is not a must, it just helps.
If you do a kit build under FAA supervision and show your 51% share
you can register it as experimental, as any other kit built aircraft.

I agree with Brent.

Also, especially if you would like to go for the 3-seater version, it would have
nothing to do with LSA (2-seats limited) and should go the kit/experimental
way anyway.

The 3-seatr is unique on the market anyway and could be an interesting product.
 
Hi All
I am looking into all this with the local FSDO in Portland Maine.
He is telling me that indeed, you could buy a machine from SA or anywhere else and register it in the Exhibition category. I'm not sure quite yet what the limitations are with that category, but I'm going to find out!

On another note, I was taken back by some of the really negative comments by a man in SA who just took possession of a new Zen1 !! Has anyone else seen that post? Poor workmanship at AAT ?? That doesn't sound right.........

Comments??

Thanks
John B
 
The exhibition category is pretty limited. And in the last few years the FAA moved to make it more limited. You have to tell them where and when you are going to fly. Flights must be for demo purposes such as an airshow or customer demo flight... but you can also fly to maintain profeciency or train for airshow demos, etc. All in all it is a pretty big 85K gamble that you won't get hasseled by the FAA.

A few years ago the FAA decided to crack down on build centers, and review the 51% rule. They temporarily stopped issuing new letters of acceptance. They came up with a draft that further broke down the 51% to various percentages of different tasks, etc. X% was "fabrication" . At that time we concluded that if they did implement that rule few gyros would even qualify.

I think under pressure from EAA and others, they later backed away from issuing a final rule and went back to leaving it up to the FSDO's to supervise the DARs.

However keep in mind the 51% rule was born in the days of "fabricating" wings from sheet metal and riveting them, making stringers, etc.

The modern gyro especially anything composite without a welded frame such as the Xenon leaves precious little "fabrication" Mostly it is assembling pre made parts- if your DAR or FSDO wanted to be difficult it is highly unlikely you would "fabricate" 51%.

Many manufacturers work with the first builder or do it themselves to get a letter of acceptance which means that subsequent builders are assured that their kit does meet the 51%.

Bottom line is if you want to build find out EXACTLY what is made and NOT made in the kit and go over it with your FSDO before you order it so they are onboard from the start.
 
The Xenon is a great design in that the cabin IS the airframe. Since your blades, rotor head, composite structure, instruments, engine, motor mounts, etc would all be premade so there are just not that many parts you could make yourself to show 51%.

Much would depend on your individual FSDO as to how they interpret 51%
 
...
On another note, I was taken back by some of the really negative comments by a man in SA
who just took possession of a new Zen1 !! Has anyone else seen that post?
Poor workmanship at AAT ?? That doesn't sound right.........

Comments??
John,

read carefully the report and further comments of the user in SA.
He had just an issue with the electric connection of the glass cockpit.

Otherwise he praised the good workmanship of the machine in general.

He mentioned also the issue with the spring trim on the string, which is
discussed and criticized since years.
If you read his report, the electric trim, he installed caused him also
some trouble, so, there is no immediate remedy.

AAT still working on further modifications.

I will just quote the last paragraph of the report:


9. So after me rambling on and on....the short answer is
that the ATA Zen1 is in my mind one of the finest, safest and enjoyable gyro's around.

Amen


The whole discussion John mentions is here:

http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36782
 
Last edited:
PT Kay

Not quite, see his comment no 4:

4. So you may ask, where is the bad stuff???? Well she arrived with a few unacceptable snags. Unacceptable if one purchases a $100 000 gyro, and some are still not sorted. This is probably more an indictment of the local agent, but ATA's assembly line quality controls are definately up the pole or non existant!

I am also surprised by this from AAT
 
PT Kay

Not quite, see his comment no 4:

4. So you may ask, where is the bad stuff???? Well she arrived with a few unacceptable snags. Unacceptable if one purchases a $100 000 gyro, and some are still not sorted. This is probably more an indictment of the local agent, but ATA's assembly line quality controls are definately up the pole or non existant!...

The snags must have really been not that critical, if he writes in a later post
on the same thread the following:

In general, I am convinced that my analysis of the available Gyro's in SA was 100 % correct, and that the toss-up between the M24 and Zen1 (the cavalon was really not that popular when I made this decision) and having gone the Zen1 route was the right decision, I am a very proud Zen1 owner and promoter.
 
Hello all,
This is one of the problems with Forums......one never really gets ALL the information. For any buyer to end up saying he is "proud Zen1 owner", the problems must not have been that serious after all.

In another thread, someone said, he should have his craft set up again - balanced etc - as the agent on site may have not assembled totally correctly.......again, who knows, he's happy to have the aircraft.........frankly, I'd love to have one myself!!

Thanks to all
johnb
 
Top