Over the seven days of EAA AirVenture, more than 2,500 volunteers pitched in to build an airplane, and on Tuesday morning they got their reward — the Zenith CH 750 Cruzer N140WW “One Week Wonder” took off on its first flight. “The flight was great,” said Jeff Skiles, EAA’s VP for community, who took the controls for the first circuit around the pattern. “The Zenith Cruzer has a lot of performance, and lifts off very fast. Like a rocket ship, really.” It was Skiles’s first maiden flight of a new aircraft, EAA said. He was thoroughly checked out on Monday in another Cruzer as well as a 750 STOL. The airplane had taxied before the airship crowds on Sunday, the last official day of the show.
“It was built in a week, and it is a basic airplane,” said Sebastien Heintz, president of Zenith. “But it also has a state-of-the-art engine [a Rotax 912 iS] and a touch-screen Dynon panel.” Charlie Becker, EAA’s homebuilt community manager, said the project achieved its purpose to show that building your own airplane is an attainable goal. “This airplane has touched a lot of lives and will continue to touch lives by showing it can be done,” he said. AVweb’s Rick Durden kept an eye on the project through the week; here’s his report from day six.
