Corvair / Zenith of the week – Dan Glaze’s 750 STOL.

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Builders; 

Highlighted here is the Corvair powered Zenith 750 STOL of Dan Glaze of Ohio.  Dan is well known as a super friendly, very positive guy in both Corvair and Zenith circles.  He generously utilizes his aircraft to make transition training available to all Zenith 750 builders, not just Corvair guys.  His aircraft has trained more than 20 Zenith pilots. 

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Above, Dan’s plane in flight.  It has been flying a few years, logging several hundred hours.  If it looks familiar, it has previously been to the September Zenith Aircraft Homecoming.  The plane has a standard 100HP  Corvair and utilizes a Prince fixed pitch prop. 

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Dan built both his kit, and his engine. He attended a few  of my Corvair Colleges, and finished and test ran his engine. He subsequently returned to more than 20 follow on Colleges as a volunteer, to assist others and ‘give back’ more than he took.  Of the 50 Corvair Colleges I held over 22 years,  Dan attended more of them than any other person, with the exception of myself. 

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The view from ‘the office’.  Dan’s traditional panel choice reflects his old school background in aviation. He goes way back, having worked on the Rockwell B-1 assembly line.  Today, he is an entrepreneur in an increasingly high tech industry, and he could build and operate the most complex and elaborate aircraft systems, but instead he made the personal choice to have a capable, but comparatively simple aircraft. 

He is a laid back guy, and he is the last person who would express a judgment of,  or tell anyone else what to do with their own homebuilt. The corollary of this attitude is Dan’s confidence to build his plane to his own personal tastes and preferences, without consideration of trends nor opinions of trolls. 

This attitude is the embodiment  “Real Freedom is the Sustained Act of Being an Individual”.  I wrote that, but it doesn’t just apply to Corvair builders, it is for anyone who places more value on their own judgement than the opinion of the crowd. 

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Above, a good view of Dan’s plane with the cowl inspection doors open. The nosebowl is fiberglass, but all the cowl between the bowl and the firewall is .025′ aluminum single curvature pieces. Engine inspection is readily available by turning four 1/4 turn Camlocks on each side. Makes through pre-flights easy. 

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William

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