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I am coming fresh out of my PPL and have an additional 15 hours solo all in Cessna 1x2s. A Velocity XL/Cozy IV styled canard meets my needs for business flight, pax and travel gear.

 

I am being put off by local (SW FL) flyboys who claim that I need more experience before purchasing a pusher technology A/C. I'm mid 50s and inclined to want to live for another 20+ years :D

 

I would certainly have an Owner (I am buying from) or someone with canard experience to take me through the initial phases but would appreciate the forums thoughts on this topic.

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I am coming fresh out of my PPL and have an additional 15 hours solo all in Cessna 1x2s. A Velocity XL/Cozy IV styled canard meets my needs for business flight, pax and travel gear.

 

I am being put off by local (SW FL) flyboys who claim that I need more experience before purchasing a pusher technology A/C. I'm mid 50s and inclined to want to live for another 20+ years :D

 

I would certainly have an Owner (I am buying from) or someone with canard experience to take me through the initial phases but would appreciate the forums thoughts on this topic.

 

Your Eminence,

 

It is neither the pusher nor the canard configuration you should be wary about with your TT. It is your TT and flying experience and the speed capability of our birds, and your expecting to utilize an aircraft for "gottagethere" flights, that you and those that care about you, as well as perhaps some on the ground should fear. My guess is that all of your cross countries have been relatively local in decent VFR weather.

 

You've got a lot of things to contend with when flying cross country with a purpose. The main one, in your case, is that with your relative lack of experience (and I don't mean to sound like I am downing you-- we've all been there) you may know what you can do with an aircraft, but not knowing what you can't do, weather,terrain, etc.--wise is where the danger is.

 

Sure get a pusher, get checked out in it, become proficient in it. Then fly it in ever increasingly long CC WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ANYWHERE AT A SPECIFIC TIME, to get the knowledge and experience that most old pilots have. Fly some long Cross countries in all kinds of weather with a good instructor. Gethomeitis or Gethereitis has killed many a pilot. The risk is exponentially increased with lack of experience.

 

Aircraft are not specifically dangerous, they are just very unforgiving.

 

In the immortal words of Don Rumsfeld (who's that, by jiminy?), There are things that you know (which you now know). There are things which you don't know (some of which you now know) Then there are the things (probably the majority) which you don't have a clue that you don't know. These are the dangerous things which become known as you fly and make mistakes from which you recover.

 

It is my conviction after teaching for many years that one does not learn from his/her successes--you may just have been @#$ lucky. You learn from your mistakes.

 

GOOD JUDGMENT IS BASED ON EXPERIENCE AND EXPERIENCE IS BASED ON BAD JUDGMENT:p .

 

Buy the plane but be careful as you expand the mission envelope.

 

Off of my creaking soap box now!!!:)

I Canardly contain myself!

Rich :D

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I am coming fresh out of my PPL and have an additional 15 hours solo all in Cessna 1x2s. A Velocity XL/Cozy IV styled canard meets my needs for business flight, pax and travel gear.

Cessna 152's and 172's are not particularly good airplanes for training to fly canards for a number of reasons (and I say this as someone who mostly flew them before flying my COZY). First, they're a lot slower, so in the COZY, stuff happens faster, and you need to think faster and think further ahead of the plane. The pattern, especially, can be busy, and slowing down for it must occur a lot sooner. 15 hours, plus the time getting the PPL, is not a lot. Not only that, but as a Cross-Country plane that can take you 1/2 way across the USA in a day, CC experience is a must - if you've never planned and flown a trip that takes you across two or three time zones, two mountain ranges, and through two weather fronts all on the same day, and had to make the decisions along the way that go along with adjusting for such conditions, again, more experience would most probably be appropriate.

 

All that said, your personal abilities in the airplane will be the single most important factor in whether you can deal with the COZY/Velocity, but on the AVERAGE, you're a little light on time and experience.

 

I am being put off by local (SW FL) flyboys who claim that I need more experience before purchasing a pusher technology A/C. I'm mid 50s and inclined to want to live for another 20+ years :D

Well, I'm inclined to agree with them (again, on the average - I don't know your PERSONAL abilities). What I'd recommend is to find someone who's willing to let you fly in their plane with them and give you a familiarization flight. It's certainly possible that with a couple of hours and 5-10 takeoffs and landings, you'd be fine. But it's also possible that whatever your motor skill capabilities, the judgment refinement that comes with more varied flying experiences is what will be most important for your safety.

 

A monkey can be taught to FLY a plane - but it's the judgment that comes from experience and further that will keep you safe.

 

I would certainly have an Owner (I am buying from) or someone with canard experience to take me through the initial phases but would appreciate the forums thoughts on this topic.

Fly early, fly often, fly many varied aircraft. Fly aircraft that are faster and more complex. Practice landing the 1x2's with no flaps at 1.7 Vs. Fly the pattern at 100 kts. Get time in a Mooney/Bonanza, or something similar. Find a COZY/Velocity owner to familiarize you. See how all that works out.

 

Or just get the COZY/Velocity and fly it - it's been done by low time pilots before, and they generally don't kill themselves. It's not the path I would take, though.

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Thanks, Mark. I had a couple hundred hours left seat without license :bad: in the early 80s, things came back quickly. But I can't disagree with your prudent approach.

 

If I am able to get an Owner/Safety pilot, with canard A/C type make a great deal of difference or can seat time translate well between the larger Cozy's and Velocitys, etc?

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If I am able to get an Owner/Safety pilot, with canard A/C type make a great deal of difference or can seat time translate well between the larger Cozy's and Velocitys, etc?

I assume you mean "will", not "with".

 

I am told by folks that have flown both that the COZY flies like a sports car (which it does), while the Velocity flies like a pickup truck (more like C-172) in the air.

 

The biggest difference with either aircraft (or any canard, for that matter) is on landing - you really don't fully flare, as you do in the training aircraft. You find the correct attitude and hold it there until touchdown. IAS on landing is far more critical, too - without flaps, you'll float forever if you're hot, and you'll slam the nose down if you're slow. It's not really hard - generally 3-5 approaches and landings will get a person to the point where they could land fine by themselves. I've only had to take the stick away from someone once, in about 10 transitions.

 

Takeoff is a little different than the spam cans, but not a lot - PIO's are possible when learning, but no-one I've transitioned has had them. They won't fly themselves off the ground, though.

 

Mostly I find myself saying "don't pull, don't pull, don't pull, etc." while getting folks to land on short final. Flying the planes in maneuvers and cruise is trivial, if your eyes are open.

 

At any rate, certainly training in a COZY will help in a Velocity - whether the converse is true, I can't say - I'd expect it would help a bit.

 

Again, the motor skills part of flying these planes isn't the hard part - it's the transitioning to the higher performance aircraft (of any type) and gaining experience in cross-country trips.

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It is almost impossible to relate the differences in flight performance but the others have done a good job at it. I Fly a Long EZ. I will attmp to give you a little different perspective with some real life experience

 

 

Every other year, I go for my BFR and usually rent one of the schools Warriors. This last time they had no Warrior's available so it was back to a Cesna 172. I havn't flow one of those now for 20 years. My instructor was not a day older than 24 years

 

I'll give you my perception of that BFR.

 

I jammed the throttle forward, kept it straight down the runway, glanced at the airspeed and before we were a few steps along Vr and the next thing I know we are up and away. But as the ground was slippng away I didn't seem to be moving forward very fast. It was taking forever to get to the end of the runway. (I should have gone to the bathroom first)

 

At this rate the practice area was going to be hours away. Once there, the instrutor said "lets do some slow flight". I blurted out " I thought that's what I have been doing for the last hour. (It was actually only 20 minutesor so) (Bathroom)

 

Then we did some agonizingly long turns, some stalls and circles around a point etc..

 

OK, now it was time to go back to the airport so I picked up my copy of "War & Peace" and read a few chapters.

 

Time to enter the pattern. Finally I thought. The bathroom was now less than an hour away. We reached the key point and I throttled back to 1500 rpm and dialed in some flaps. I read a couple of more chapters, (I had to do something to keep my mind off of the bathroom) turned base and tweeked in some more flaps. We were decending fairly rapidly. At least this spam can did something promptly. Not the flat out extended run of a slippery EZ.

 

Turned final. Two more chapters, ad some throttle. Bathroom, bathroom.

 

Touch down and roll out. Turned off the active and the instrutor asked If I wanted to do a couple of touch & gos. I asked him if he knew what Flomax was. He didn't

 

I told him "Touch & go's and Flowmax were incompatable, check it out on the internet" under Urinairy Flight Protocols

 

After the glorius bathroom break he charged me for 1.3 hours.

 

In any of the EZ's you could have done all that, including the bathroom, and not really have enough time to put it into the log book.

 

On the next BFR no Cessna 172's. Or don't forget to bring a good book.

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Left yoke feels very natural. Right stick feels completely natural. Right yoke and left stick do (did) not.

 

In switching from the Longez to the Cozy, I needed several hours of adjustment in going from right hand stick to left hand stick. Up and away it was no big deal. In the pattern, it was like trying to write with my other hand. After a dozen or so circuits, my left hand was retrained----and now it feels completely natural.

 

All the other stuff is MUCH more important (judgement, speed, etc).

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I just gotta say...Eminence, your friggin cat looks like Dame Edna. I crack up every time I scroll through it. Poor dam Kat. [wiping a tear away]...you gotta get SOME kinda hobby- and leave your defenseless cat alone. Egads.:envy::)

Self confessed Wingnut.

Now think about it...wouldn't you rather LIVE your life, rather than watch someone else's, on Reality T.V.?

Get up off that couch!!! =)

 

Progress; Fuselage on all three, with outside and inside nearly complete. 8 inch extended nose. FHC done. Canard finished. ERacer wings done with blended winglets. IO540 starting rebuild. Mounting Spar. Starting strake ribs.

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Left yoke feels very natural. Right stick feels completely natural. Right yoke and left stick do (did) not.

 

In switching from the Longez to the Cozy, I needed several hours of adjustment in going from right hand stick to left hand stick. Up and away it was no big deal. In the pattern, it was like trying to write with my other hand. After a dozen or so circuits, my left hand was retrained----and now it feels completely natural.

 

All the other stuff is MUCH more important (judgement, speed, etc).

I completely overlooked the LH Rh issue.

 

<THUNK> :irked:

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I just gotta say...Eminence, your friggin cat looks like Dame Edna. I crack up every time I scroll through it. Poor dam Kat. [wiping a tear away]...you gotta get SOME kinda hobby- and leave your defenseless cat alone. Egads.:envy::)

Sir, the Eminence IS the cat. :P
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I just gotta say...Eminence, your friggin cat looks like Dame Edna. I crack up every time I scroll through it. Poor dam Kat. [wiping a tear away]...you gotta get SOME kinda hobby- and leave your defenseless cat alone. Egads.:envy::)

:confused: ..... I thought it was a chicken.

T Mann - Loooong-EZ/20B Infinity R/G Chpts 18

Velocity/RG N951TM

Mann's Airplane Factory

We add rocket's to everything!

4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, 10, 14, 19, 20 Done

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Dangggg.....a pet CHICKEN? Really?

He has a pet friggin chicken that he dresses to look like Dame Edna.......

 

Eminence is even weirder than I first thought! :D

Self confessed Wingnut.

Now think about it...wouldn't you rather LIVE your life, rather than watch someone else's, on Reality T.V.?

Get up off that couch!!! =)

 

Progress; Fuselage on all three, with outside and inside nearly complete. 8 inch extended nose. FHC done. Canard finished. ERacer wings done with blended winglets. IO540 starting rebuild. Mounting Spar. Starting strake ribs.

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Dangggg.....a pet CHICKEN? Really?

He has a pet friggin chicken that he dresses to look like Dame Edna.......

Eminence is even weirder than I first thought! :D

Nope, I double checked, it's a cat.

Maybe it's a scaredy-cat? That's why it looks so much like a chicken.

. . .

Airspeed is Life -

:cool: - Having lots of it

is Better!

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Thank God for that!

I thought I was the only one. . .:envy:

Had to use the magnifier button on my mouse to see the cat, in that chicken. . .

Everyone has been very nice to us but I must insist that there is NO CHICKEN. Eminence is upset over being misCATegorized. :mad:
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This is a great thread!!

 

Good advice and colorful illustrations from the best (make that 'most vocal') of the canardians.

 

MO: Answer the guy's question, then compare to others' responses, maybe get into a fight, then beat-up his avatar.

 

You gotta love it!

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[Raising my hand]...ahhh, in my defense- I didn't make anything up...Eminence chose his own avatar..and in this group if its a Dame Edna Cat, he's gotta expect to get called on it.

Some were desperately trying to affix wings to the contrivance, [ala, call it a chicken] that it might fit in better with the aviary nature of our 'birds'...but in the end...

He also must be a hypnotist because none of my cats would stand still, let alone stand for that.;)

As a result, I am glad Eminence is here with us as any time spent at the keyboard means he less prone to be out and about hypnotising defenseless animals.:D

 

With regards to this safety thread..heres a pic of my safe and sane FHC I finished laying up last night. Ready for canard cover shaping and nose top glassing.

post-4661-141090161313_thumb.jpg

Self confessed Wingnut.

Now think about it...wouldn't you rather LIVE your life, rather than watch someone else's, on Reality T.V.?

Get up off that couch!!! =)

 

Progress; Fuselage on all three, with outside and inside nearly complete. 8 inch extended nose. FHC done. Canard finished. ERacer wings done with blended winglets. IO540 starting rebuild. Mounting Spar. Starting strake ribs.

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