Hoi zäme from Zurich, Switzerland, Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Planet Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, etc etc...

[DeeCee 57]

Hi gals (any out here?) and guys 

 

Living in the heart of Europe... Been flying a Varieze for 4 months now... Might eventually buy that very Eze since I kinda fell in love with that strange looking bird and she might be up for sale... This would make it the 4th aircraft I have owned, first one was a French designed S.I.P.A. callsign HB-SPT, the second an Aeromere Falco Series 3 callsign D-ENIB, the third one another Falco Laverda built series 4 callsign HB-UOD... Forgot to mention having spent many years and $$$$$ building an RV-4 previously...

 

Always been fascinated by canards, quite a few still flying around here, 5 (4 Varis, one Speedcanard) based on my field at Birrfeld LSZF 

Thanks for reading me.

 

A big thank you to Jon Matcho for this site, always good for birds of same feathers... to flock to the same forum 

Edited September 7, 2016 by DeeCee 57

[Kent Ashton]

690 meters? Seems a little short for Variezes :-)

[Jon Matcho]

Welcome to Earth DC - buy that Vari!  

 

Kent, 690 m is for helikopters on that field ;-)

 

727 m (2387 ft) is available on asphalt, but still tight in my inexperienced book.

 

http://www.birrfeld.ch/piloten-info/vac-ad-info/ 

[Kent Ashton]

Hey, I wonder if our friend knows about checking for corrosion in the Varieze wing fittings?  It could shorten his landing considerably: 1 meter (depth of the hole).  :-)

[DeeCee 57]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

 

Kent thanx for your concern, having been in the experimental/custom built/amateur whatever you call them scene for about 35 years now, having read all CPs, I'm more than aware of the eventual corrosion problem. You probably know that only one VEZE was affected, and only whilst on the ground... I've already had the one I'm looking at dismantled for trailer transportation and had a good look.

 

 

Re field length requirement, 690m is quite ok... Guess we are kindof used to these length. The 4 Ezes on the field are equipped with good brakes... and MT electric constant speed props. Just returned from a flight to LSZL Locarno on the South of the Alps (for that famous €300 pizza ), full fuel and my 130lbs (63kg) wife and myself (same weight), lifted off half runway length on departure, used 3/4 on landing with medium distance touchdown and medium braking.

Was in Bad Ragaz 2 weeks ago, that is more of a challenge with <500m, narrow strip and a major hill with a hotel on top to avoid on finals .

[macleodm3]

The 4 Ezes on the field are equipped with good brakes... and MT electric constant speed props. 

 

Sweet!  That is something we don't see a lot of here.... Variezes with constant speed props.

Does yours have a CS prop too?

[DeeCee 57]

Hi Andrew

The Eze I'm having the privilege to operate (that sounds ponderous, no?) ain't mine...Yet.

 

Of course, you guys in the US have access to looooong runways. Here it is slightly different.

Yes, the one I'm flying (lucky enough to have some aircraft to fly with, ranging from say the humble French manufactured Jodel D11 to the still much ahead of its time (witness that ugly manly indescent bullhorn on the 787) A320 range of aircraft, and yes, that Ez I'm flying is equipped with a MTV-1-F prop. This helps not only in getting airborne, but slows it down down somewhat during descent and approach. All with a rotary control knob, kinda neat German tech 

Edited September 8, 2016 by DeeCee 57

[Marc Zeitlin]

Kent thanx for your concern, having been in the experimental/custom built/amateur whatever you call them scene for about 35 years now, having read all CPs, I'm more than aware of the eventual corrosion problem. You probably know that only one VEZE was affected, and only whilst on the ground... I've already had the one I'm looking at dismantled for trailer transportation and had a good look.

That claim is incorrect. There has been one in-flight failure of wing attach fittings, but it was not catastrophic, in that it was the compression fitting on top that failed. I have this information from the person at RAF who was involved in the incident evaluation.

 

My hangar mate has a VE wing attach fitting from a VE in which 2/3 of the AL material had corroded away and the other third looked like it had come out of a croissant - very flakey. I've posted pictures on the canard-aviators mailing list in the past.

 

I have seen pictures of two other VE wing attach fittings with substantial corrosion on the hidden areas that were only discovered after disassembly - one was recently written up in the CSA newsletter. A visual inspection of the wing attach fittings without removing them from the composite spar is NOT conclusive - none of the three non-failed corroded fittings of which I'm aware would have been discoverable had the fittings not been removed from the spar.  Merely removing the wings from the main spar does not indicate anything useful.

 

So please do not spread the incorrect claim that there's only ever been one failure (or that somehow, even if there was, that would mitigate the issue). With only a few hundred VE's still flying, having 4 KNOWN failures or incipient failures represents a very large percentage of the total when discussing catastrophic structural failures.

 

When I do Condition Inspections on VE's, I have taken to caveating the wing attach fittings with explicit language explaining that they are uninspectable without 40 - 80 hours or disassembly/re-assembly work, and that the structural integrity of the fittings is unknown for any VE for which the provenance throughout it's lifetime is not completely known (and even then, there MAY be issues, depending upon how they were constructed).

 

For the record.

[DeeCee 57]

Hi Marc, and thanks for your expertise.

 

 

the structural integrity of the fittings is unknown for any VE for which the provenance throughout it's lifetime is not completely known (and even then, there MAY be issues, depending upon how they were constructed).

That is true indeed.

 

Again, I guess (hope) that all parties interested in a Varieze have seen the pictures of those highly corroded wing fittings.

 

Maybe you would like to elaborate as to the reason(s) the corrosion starts and gets going? Could saline air environment be partly responsible? Bad building? The recommended scuffing of the fittings prior to glassing damaging the protective aluminum layer? And now, what if any methods of inspection do you recommend? Any result by people suggesting to x-ray the area of the fittings? These Varieze have been flying for dozens of years now, the eventual problem known for almost the same period of time, there must be a better method than butcher the wings or caveat said fittings? Any idea to HELP people having an interest in a Varieze?

[Marc Zeitlin]

Again, I guess (hope) that all parties interested in a Varieze have seen the pictures of those highly corroded wing fittings.

Those who are members of the canard-aviators mailing list have, if they've cared to pay attention to the extensive discussions on this topic that have occurred over the past few years, or if they've read the CSA newsletters in which Terry Schubert has published some of them. Some folks prefer to be ostriches, however.

Maybe you would like to elaborate as to the reason(s) the corrosion starts and gets going? Could saline air environment be partly responsible? Bad building? The recommended scuffing of the fittings prior to glassing damaging the protective aluminum layer? And now, what if any methods of inspection do you recommend? Any result by people suggesting to x-ray the area of the fittings? These Varieze have been flying for dozens of years now, the eventual problem known for almost the same period of time, there must be a better method than butcher the wings or caveat said fittings? Any idea to HELP people having an interest in a Varieze?

I'm not going to repeat years worth of conversations - the canard-aviators mailing list is searchable, and the CSA newsletter has an index.

 

Yes, salt air is certainly an issue, as is the fact that the plans did not specify alodining the AL fittings and/or polysulfide sealant around the fittings. But just getting the fittings wet over time, with the microcracking that all composites are susceptible to, can also be a contributor.

 

With respect to inspections, without a full disassembly of the fittings from the spar, the corrosion is NOT visible or detectable. While VE owners may not like it, that's just how it is. There are some folks that are attempting to use NDT to determine if corrosion exists, but they have had no success as of yet.

 

Why do you say that there "must" be a better method? Sometimes, we cannot have what we want - facts are stubborn things. "Butchering" of the wings is not necessary - just disassembly. It just happens to be a laborious process. Generally, 2nd owners are not knowledgeable enough to do it, and paying someone to do the labor is a substantial proportion of the cost of the aircraft.

 

As I've said before, if this were a certificated aircraft, an AD grounding the fleet until this inspection was performed on EVERY VE aircraft, with a repair/replacement of the wing attach fittings, would have been issued. But with EAB aircraft, owners have the choice to ignore the recommendations of knowledgeable folks, including the aircraft designer.

 

If you were a member of the canard-aviators list, you would be aware of the "HELP" that has been provided to the community in the past by the publication of the known problems, the discussions of repair methodologies, the advice of knowledgeable people, and the factual explanations of material properties and corrosion issues.

 

Mostly, I try to convince prospective owners to purchase a Long-EZ, rather than a VE, since the LE does not have this potential catastrophic failure mode. But that's just me.

[DeeCee 57]

Marc, I maintain that there must be a better method, there is a whole bunch of NDT processes available. It just seems none has been successfully used (or published) in this case...

 

As far as choosing the LE over the VE, assuming I had a choice, the LE has not only positive aspects to me. The biggie in my case being its size. Actually the size of the trailer. The one used for that VE is barely wider than a standard European car, which means nicely manoeuvrable on our winding roads, and fits nicely in my garage. A trailer for a LE is a different story, loading the aircraft canted to respect maximum width is not a practical solution to me. Also the VE I might consider hangs from the hangar's roof beams in a very cramped space, not sure a LE would even fit in. Then there are the looks (yep, in the eye of the beholder   ).

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing your knowledge and for your welcome! 

[Marc Zeitlin]

Marc, I maintain that there must be a better method, there is a whole bunch of NDT processes available. It just seems none has been successfully used (or published) in this case...

The issue with NDT techniques is that in order to determine criteria for judging, you generally need to have a population of known good samples and another population of known bad samples. This is the case for Ultrasound, X-Ray, MRI, etc. The problem here is that we don't have 10 (or 100) samples of known GOOD VE wing attach fittings attached to spars (because without disassembly, we don't KNOW that they're good), and we don't have 10 (or 100) samples of known BAD wing attach fittings attached to spars (because without disassembly, we don't KNOW that they're bad).

 

Without the good and bad samples, you can NDT the crap out of something and not know what you're looking at, because each assembly type has different characteristics.

 

Now, there are some folks that are claiming that they can tell good from bad without the known samples, and there are a couple of folks attempting to make this type of diagnosis happen. But I am extremely skeptical, and unless they're willing to disassemble the wing attach fittings from the spars (where "spar" includes both the main spar and wing spar), we won't have confirmation of the diagnosis made.

 

I HOPE that they can make the NDT work without samples for the sake of the VE population, but as my good friend Carmen says, "Hope is not a method".