Radial Cozy captured by Drew

[Edge 513]

I went to Drews website to see how he was doing and his front page contains this rare photo[below]. I had forgotten about this from a year or two ago. Since Its been kinda quiet around here, I figured I would post this miscreant view of this Secret original Nat Puffer modification, and history of Nats modification views in general. Drew has more on his webpage but this is enuf for here.

 

The Radial Cozy Mark IV...Little talked of mod.

Glad you caught a picture of it at it's ONLY appearance at OSHKosh Airventure. [before they put the word air-and adventure together to somehow make flight seem more exciting to the masses, as if it weren't exciting enough already to the people already DOING IT.] The REAL story behind it is:

 

Nat and Shirley had both put on more than 100 pounds each and figured he would use their [hush, hush,] combined 525 pound front seat weight to it's advantage to offset an amazing meeting of 'old and new'. So with the old adage of 'necessity is the mother of invention' Nat produced the RADIAL Mark IV in a period of a few months. Dubbing it his 'BACK TO THE FUTURE' plane, Nat concocted a crafty Cozy marketing ploy to have 'The Doc' and 'Marty' fly around the world with him and land at OSH in a public relations media frenzy. Nat scrapped the radial [power-plant and spare-tire] when he realized fat didn't photograph well, and he and his bride soon after both had gastric-by-pass surgery. It was a poignant moment as Nat insisted that they be operated on simultaneously while holding hands. Nat also insisted; 1. on him having no anesthesia so he could critique the surgeons 'build-technique' and, 2. him NOT wearing one of those stupid green un-masculine puffy patient bonnets.

 

He claimed the radial hurtled them along at plus 300 mph, and was the antidote too, in his words, "Shirley's friggin' pea sized bladder...It limits us to what ever distance we can make in 2 hours max". Which really gave him a hearty Irish belly chuckle [and Nat doesn't usually chuckle much]... He reluctantly next went to the VERY publicized Franklin 6 cylinder engine which was anemic in it's comparative performance, and then discarded also. Nat admitted that 'nothing would compare to the pee-autiful performance or the nostalgia of the 'radial', so he might as well go back to the plans power-plant. This is when he finally decided to discourage modding the airplane and put his foot down and stay inside 'the box'... Previous to this, his solution to squeezing into the girth challenged extra-cozy Cozy was to remove all the seat cushions and simply rearrange his bounteous girth forward, backward and downward, and ride on his fat as if it WERE a cushion... [FYI- larger Cozy builders might try that one on, as an idea]. Nat also liberally greased up Shirley [again, cue his impish Irish chuckle] before sliding her down into the seat, and there was a pneumatic-actuated [Vance Atkinson did the assembly for this] 'seat popper' that propelled Shirley approximately 24 inches vertically after the nose was fully lowered, and the canopy lifted...thus allowing Shirley coquettishly demure egress from the now highly frictional Cabin compartment. This sudden release of C.ompressed G.ass which was located in the S.trakes [and incidentally this idea is where the original idea for the name C.G.S. or 'COZY GIRLS STRAKES' came from-[ later used by some non-frictional 'cozy' fitting girrrls]. Shirley always blushed upon release of the CGS egress system as usually there was quite a crowd around by the time she was to exit the plane, and she hoped no one would confuse the sound and her sudden vertical propellment with a very un-girllike male condition...Ahem. Nat removed this as once again a 'discarded mod', not useful for 'the masses'. His reasoning was no one "THAT FAT' should ever be in a Cozy. "Lose some weight if you're a L.A." [Lard A$$] became his mantra. And thus the 400# front seat 'limit' was born.

 

[Note: If contacted privately either he or Vance might be persuaded with large amounts of now uncirculated 2 dollar bills or Susan b.Anthony 1.$coins, to release the CGS plans for you larger than average Cozy front seaters. This is how Uli Wolter was able to obtain the front hinged canopy design exclusively for the Cozy classic...as Nat ditched that for the Mark IV and sold it to Uli. Uli insisted he had to have something to make the Classic unique since Nat was going to build the IV, and Uli had a pile of soon to be rare $2 bills and S.B.Antony's at his disposal, which Nat was collecting.] Otherwise all you folks wanting to break new ground[er, wind] on a FHC design would have it as part of the Mark IV plans...yep you would have it...Nat already did the work for you.

 

...So, for your consideration, just some under-belly Cozy history that you might not have been aware of, brought up from the archives like yesterdays ill-settling lunch...

Maybe this gives you a bit more appreciation for all the effort that has gone into this project and the fact that Nat was a 'modder' before some of you were even in diapers.

 

Thanks again for the pic Drew. It allowed me[in my best Marlin Perkins voice] to shed some light on the dimming original Cozy Mark IV 'Wild Kingdom' history. Which most of you, without this perspective have thought was pretty tame and not so 'wild'. Anyway. Signing off for this step back into the Cozy Jungle past, this is Marlin Perkins...saying...

Goodnight.

 

P.S. If Nat should ever read this, I hope it would get the tongue-in-cheek-chuckle that is fully intended, and know of my past, and present admiration of He and his Mrs.