Marc Cook
Marc Cook is a veteran special-interest journalist who started as a staffer at AOPA Pilot in the late 1980s. Marc has built two airplanes, an Aero Designs Pulsar XP and a Glasair Aviation Sportsman, and now owns a 180-hp, recently modernized GlaStar based in western Oregon. Marc has 5000 hours spread over 200-plus types and four decades of flying.
The Hiring Spree Continues: Zenith, Too
Recently, both Van's Aircraft and Sonex have reached out to the homebuilder community in search of qualified employees and that's something on Zenith's radar...
Why You Should Do Engine Oil Analysis
Engine oil analysis for aircraft is an essential element of long-term powerplant health, for both Experimental and certified aircraft. KITPLANES' Marc Cook shows how...
EAA Updates AirVenture NOTAM
EAA has made several changes to the Oshkosh arrival and departure procedures, and published them in the new AirVenture NOTAM. The special procedures will...
Sonex Is Hiring
We've been talking about the "boom" in Experimental aviation for the last year. Virtually every company we speak to has seen sales increase through...
FAA Previews Task-Based Testing for Experimentals
Here you thought the existing Phase I flight-test rules were set in stone. Maybe not so much. The EAA, saying a proposed set of...
Kitfox Announces New Model With Stunning New Rotax Engine
Kitfox Aircraft, ever the innovator in the kitbuilt industry, showed early examples of its latest Series 7 STi with the promising new six-cylinder Rotax...
Droning About the Future
Elsewhere in this issue, we’ve taken a few pages to consider the future of homebuilding, a composite sketch of sorts based on interviews and...
The Future of Homebuilding: Industry
For the general public, the idea of constructing your own airplane, with your own hands, in your own space, is borderline fantastical. To them,...
Fleeting Thoughts
When we talk about Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft with “regular” pilots, it’s common for the conversation to imply that our world is a mere tiny speck...
In Case You Missed It
![A Zenith STOL CH701 on Zenair amphibious floats rests on a sandbar on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. [Credit: Zenith Aircraft]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/zenair-floats-STOL_CH_701a-Topaz-Gigapixel-2x-scale-Topaz-Gigapixel-2x-scale.jpg?w=324&h=160&crop=1 "Zenith STOL CH 701 at 40: The Iconic ‘Sky Jeep’ Design Audit"){kind=tracking}
Zenith STOL CH 701 at 40: The Iconic ‘Sky Jeep’ Design Audit
In 1986, a Canadian aeronautical engineer named Chris Heintz pulled the first STOL CH...
