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I live in the Florida Keys. I've been in the military and worked inside the Beltway. I've had 22 technical books and two novels published. I fly, boat, dive, shoot, and swim pretty damn well.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Zenith 601XL and Competitive Poison

If you are interested in the Zenith 601XL aircraft as I am, (I fly one!) then you probably know about a discussion group maintained on a list server called matronics. (There is a 601XL group on Yahoo Groups, but it never got up to takeoff speed).

Over the last few months, there have been some strange postings on the board amounting to Chicken Little flapping around claiming the sky is falling. They claim that the wings are folding on 601 aircraft in mid flight for no good reason.

This struck me as being quite strange. There have been no "near" accidents. No reports of cracks or loose support elements found during inspections. Also, the Chicken Littles were quite shrill.

It seems increasingly clear that much of the noise is coming from competitors in the Sport Aircraft industry who want to poison and then harvest the Zenith sales.

The slide of the dollar against other currencies is going to make many of the sport aircraft in the market much more expensive. Hopefully, they... and the Chicken Littles.. will dry up and blow away.

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