You can tell he’s having fun
Yep… probably enjoying the aesthetics of the beast 
Related
Chris Heintz (21 November 1938 – 30 April 2021) was a French and Canadian aeronautical engineer, known for his kit aircraft designs.
Heintz served in the Armée de l’Air and went on to find employment with Aerospatiale, on the Concorde supersonic airliner project. Later, he worked for Avions Pierre Robin designing several two-seat and four-seat light aircraft for type certification and production, including the Robin HR100 and Robin HR200.
It was during his time at Robin, in 1968, that Heintz started designing his own aircraft in his spare time. He named it the Zenith, an anagram of his last name.
During a number of successive exhibitions at AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Heintz organized building a complete aircraft during the seven day event. Typical was the 2014 plan to assemble a Zenair CH 750, using volunteer labour from show attendees, enlisting 7,000 people to pull one rivet each to complete the project in an estimated 170 hours of building, before the aircraft flew on the last day of the show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Heintz_(aeronautical_engineer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenair_CH_200
You can tell he’s having fun
A few photos of the masterpiece under the skin.
@A_and_C Of course you are right about the DR400 but when I started flying instruction was on a DR315, D112, and the Rallye. For navigation we had a DR360, it was an aircraft we could go as 4 adults and full tanks from LFFK to Perpignan LFMP at 120kts IAS so about 3hrs.
Take off from a 960m grass strip, using about a third of it. Not quick by today’s standards I’ll admit but on a 160hp engine we used between 30 and 33 litres an hour.
I loved that little Robin (except for the canopy locking system) and it was still going strong up until recently as was the DR315 (which is still going strong. Although both had long since gone into private hands. I first flew them in 1993 and they were not exactly new then. I think the club bought them in the 1970’s and they did between 300 and 400 hours annually
If you could taxi a Rallye you can taxi just about anything
@jujupilote about any nose wheel aircraft?
Peter
The answer to Your question is that the DR400 outperforms all aircraft of the same power, is a delight to fly and French property prices mean that clubs could afford hangars to keep the aircraft in.
The Rallye was initially designed as part of a competition for a basic military trainer. AIUI it didn’t win and I can’t remember what did.
The Raĺlye became popular in clubs as a basic trainer and as a glider tug. I’m not sure why some clubs chose the Rallye instead of what would then have been the DR300 series.
Many clubs at the time would have had the D112 for initial PPL training and then move onto the Robin for the navigation part. So, perhaps some clubs decided on the tricycle undercarriage of the Rallye for initial training and the fact that is a solid old beast with a super flap system. If you could taxi a Rallye you can taxi just about anything.
He was a club flight instructor turned into a businessman :) He knew pretty well his market : 2-3 seater, decent speed, low cost, versatile.
His design was really aimed at clubs. While I never understood what was the market of the Rallye, which was more an engineer’s airplane : well performing but why a super stol plane in a club?
@Peter the Jodel and Robin aircraft along with the CAP10 evolved over the years each model proving itself as fuel efficient, simple to fly and maintain and with good performance. They were also designed with the French aeroclub scene in mind.
If you look back at past comparisons with their competition the Robin rarely came top of performances like speed, take off and landing distance, load carrying etc, but they were always thereabouts.
An average of all things would usually put them above the competition.
But above all for most of us they were a delight to fly.
I always wish they had made a twin instrument platform with an electric driving system
How did Robin achieve such a large market share of the aeroclub community in France?
