701f

About

The Zenith STOL CH 701 is the work of Chris Heintz, a Canadian aeronautical engineer who founded Zenair in Midland, Ontario, and later licensed his designs to Zenith Aircraft Company in Mexico, Missouri. Introduced in 1986, the CH 701 was conceived as an "off-airport" short-takeoff-and-landing kit aircraft — built to fulfill the dual demanding requirements of both sport pilots and first-time builders. Heintz combined the features of a "real" airplane with the short-field capabilities of an ultralight, and the result became one of the most-copied light aircraft designs in current production.

The technical recipe is distinctive: fixed leading-edge slats for high lift at low speed, full-span flaperons (control surfaces that act as both ailerons and flaps), an all-flying rudder, and durable all-metal construction in 6061-T6 aluminum joined with thousands of aircraft-grade pulled rivets. The numbers back up the design philosophy — at gross weight, the CH 701 is airborne in less than 120 feet of unprepared grass, or 90 feet of hard surface. That capability is why most of the more than five hundred CH 701s flying today aren't found at airports at all but at remote bush strips, backyard fields, and short off-airport grass strips around the world.

The 701f variant in this pack adds floats — turning the bush plane into a water-capable bush plane, in the tradition of every Cessna 185, Piper Super Cub, and de Havilland Beaver before it. The unmistakable strut-braced high-wing-on-floats silhouette appears in countless modern foam and balsa scale RC kits, and the "STOL on floats" sport-scale category remains one of the most evocative in the hobby.

In the simulator

A friendly, slow-flying sport-scale model with the bush-plane character of its real counterpart. Generous wing area and the high-lift slats give it the kind of low-speed handling that makes water takeoffs and landings teachable rather than terrifying. Use it to learn floatplane technique: stepped takeoff runs, gentle water touchdowns, and the off-axis crab a floatplane needs in a crosswind. Pairs naturally with coastal and lake landscapes. A natural sibling to the 701F2 in this same pack — same airframe, different paint and float setup.