Report from May 2025 Czech Trip

As usual, I have a big agenda when I visit Czech. This trip I scheduled a few extra days to cover everything. In no particular order:

We are building a Merlin II with a Rotax 915iS for a customer in the USA. It is now in the paint shop. New engine mount was built for this engine.

The electric power system is nearly finished! We purchased a spot welder to build our own battery packs. Above you can see the battery pack frame. It will be a composite box that fits inside the aluminum frame. And the small pump is for cooling the motor and controller. Test flights will be in June! We may air ship the electric power to USA for display at Oshkosh then installation to a Merlin Lite in USA.

In other Merlin Lite news, Vittorazi is finally shipping us and engine so we may fabricate the cowl and engine mount. Then, we expect a steady stream of engines. They promised us a tractor version of the Cosmos 300 8 months ago. Seems like we can’t catch a break on delivering any aircraft. But not for lack of effort.

Here are 3 100% finished Merlin Lite airframes. And another 6 Merlin Lite kits built around 50%. We planned to finish those kits in our USA build center but now will continue assembly in CZ as we have to wait for the engines.

Two Merlins are ready to ship. We also have this perfect demo Merlin with a Rotax 582 available.

There is some good news: We are delivering Merlins now. We flew some 150 hours on one Vtwin Merlin and up to 15,000 feet as well. Now in the customer’s hands. And now that we are past those pesky issues, we will be flying and shipping Merlins regularly. That includes getting parts and upgrade kits out to builders.

These images are of a Kitfox installation of the Vtwin. There are a lot of Kitfoxes out there with worn out 582 engines.

And once in a while we ship our 1450 amphibious floats. We also have 750 floats for ultralights in stock.

Here is a universal jig we use to make the flaps and ailerons and other flying surfaces perfect. We can cleco fixtures in any position for any assembly.

Last but not least, TrueLite kits are finished. Francesco is just waiting on crates so he can pack and ship.

Cheers,

CHIP