Wednesday 27 September 2017

ATEC Zephyr 2000(s) of New Zealand

The first new sport aircraft type to be registered in New Zealand in 2005 was the ATEC Zephyr 2000, of which we have also had a lone example.

The ATEC Zephyr was designed in the Czech Republic by Oldrich Olansky to fit in with FAI microlight rules, and it was produced by ATEC v.o.s. at Libice nad Cidlinou, a village in central Bohemia.  The composite fuselage has wooden bulkheads and the plywood wings have a composite spar and leading edge and are fabric covered.

The Zephyr has a length of  6.2 metres (20 feet 4 inches) and a wingspan of 9.6 metres (31 feet 6 inches) with a wing area of 108 square feet.  Empty weight is around 275 Kg (606 pounds) and MAUW is 472 Kg (1,042 pounds) which gives it a rather small payload when fully fuelled..  The engine was a Rotax 912ULS of 100 HP which gave a respectable cruise of around 116 knots (134 mph), and the stall speed was 35 knots (40 mph).

The Zephyr has been superceded by the ATEC Faeta.

Our first and only Zephyr was ZK-ZFR (c/n Z1070804S) was first registered on 27/1/05 to Kevin Hartley of Auckland, with ownership transferring to Kevin's company Hyflyte Aviation Ltd on 11/2/05.  Its first flight here was on 30/4/05, and it is photo'd above at the 2006 SAANZ flyin at Tauranga, on 5/2/06.

A later shot of it at home base North Shore airfield on 22/5/10.  It suffered a landing accident on arrival at the 2011 Black Sands flyin at Raglan on 12/11/11.  I think it was repaired after that accident and it was then exported to points unknown with its registration being cancelled on 31/5/13.

2 comments:

  1. For completeness: Length = 6.2 m (from http://www.atecaircraft.eu/en/planes/zephyr/nova-podstranka/)

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  2. Thanks for that Frank. I had forgot that I still had to fill in the length. Done now.

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