The Midpoint Reset: Navigating the Rest of the 2026 Homebuilt Horizon

You’re home again, and the airplane cabin still smells faintly of Florida and sunscreen. The bugs on the leading edges are mostly gone, but the rhythm of arrival and departure—of pitching tents under wings and watching the sun come up over the lakes—lingers a little longer each year after Sun ’n Fun and the first of the early summer fly-ins. It is the natural reset point of the annual kitplane calendar. Oshkosh is growing larger on the event horizon, annual inspections are done. 

In this issue, we see instalment #23 of Jon Humberd’s epic Zenith CH750/701 build story. LeRoy Cook gives us a piece on a classic—the venerable Wittman Tailwind; Mike Davenport reports on the first flight of a modern classic, the Glasair Sportsman 2+2.

Eric Stewart describes his favorite tools and provides tips on how to make the shop more efficient.  Andrew Robinson writes about odd and unusual aircraft, as well as giving us his take on Sun ‘n Fun 2026. And more.

In the greater homebuilt community a few big stories are already shaping the rest of the season.

Two of those stories will get their full due in our August issue, but they’re worth mentioning here at the midpoint of the year. One is about endurance—a company with designs that have excelled for four decades. The other is about a rescue—a company that, for a few anxious weeks, looked as if it might vanish entirely before being rescued.

On the endurance side is Zenith. The iconic Zenith STOL design—born as the CH 701 back in 1986—is marking its 40th anniversary, a milestone that feels both impossible and obvious when you stand next to one on the ramp and realize how thoroughly it has imprinted itself on the landscape of light utility experimentals. Chris Heintz’s boxy little Sky Jeep, as so many still call it, is now a multigenerational presence: pilots who first discovered short fields and gravel bars behind those leadingedge slats are now bringing kids and grandkids to Zenith homecomings and handing them the keys. The factory in Mexico, Missouri, will host its 34th annual Homecoming Open Hangar Days and Fly-In this September, a reminder that the community around these airplanes has almost as much history as the airplanes themselves.

On the rescue side is Sonex. Not long ago, the word coming out of Oshkosh was grim: Sonex LLC, long a fixture in the kit world, shut down operations citing financial pressure, leaving builders and prospective buyers wondering if their projects and deposits would be lost. Then, in a dramatic turnaround, came the announcement that ON Capital Inc., led by pilot and general contractor Stephen Osborne, had acquired all of the Sonex assets—including Sonex Aerospace and the AeroConversions engine line—and would resume operations as Sonex Aviation. Within 21 days of first contact, the deal was done, the lights were coming back on, tail kits were slated to   start shipping again, and the much anticipated highwing had roughly 80 preorders on the books.

Zenith and Sonex represent two different but complementary exmples of what homebuilt means in 2026: Zenith as the proof of kit building  concept stretched over four decades, accumulating refinements without losing its original soul, and Sonex as the scrappy metal sport plane that invited a generation of budgetminded builders into the game and now has a fighting chance for a second act.

We’ll dig into both stories next month. August will carry a feature on Zenith at forty, anchored in the STOL CH 701’s anniversary and the culture that has grown up around Mexico Memorial Airport, paired with a report on the rescue and relaunch of Sonex Aviation under its new ownership. For now, as you hose off the last of the Florida bugs and eye the dates on the calendar for Oshkosh, it’s enough to know that one of our stalwarts is celebrating a big birthday and another favorite nameplate has been given a fresh lease on life