Kent's Long-EZ project

[Kent Ashton]

Here is a gear and canopy warning system that I tested yesterday and work pretty well--simpler than I had before.  It will give you a red light and horn if (1) throttle is brought to idle with the NG not fully down, or (2) if throttle is advanced when the canopy lever is not in the locked position.    You can also incorporate another DPST or DPDT and get a comforting green "gear down" light when the NG is down (see pic 2).  The diagram is drawn with the DPDT switch.

 

The idea I had here http://www.canardzone.com/forum/topic/18661-kents-long-ez-project/?p=59911 did not work very well.  During landing and taxi, the bounce in the NG strut would turn the indications on and off.

 

------

 

A while back I posted some pics of an adjustable foot-piece for rudder pedals.  They worked well but I saw this one on the C-A list and like it better and it'd be a piece of cake to extend or lengthen the pedals.

 

------

 

I found a better picture of the latch I want to make to get ride of the drafty cockpit door and Hartwell latch.  Still not sure of the key-lock parts but if you have any suggestions, post 'em.

 

 

[Barry]

Regarding the adjustable pedal - It results in your foot at an extreme angle, assuming your heel stays in the same place. Maybe OK for the rudder operation, but for braking, your foot, and feel, works best when it is not at such an extreme. IMO, anyway, from racing cars were the brakes are moderately important.

[Jon Matcho]

Been trying to think of a name for folks who ask questions--especially in 3 or 4 canard websites--and never respond to the answers.   You see that a lot on HomebuiltAircraft.com.  Folks there will respond with 3 pages of answers without a peep by the OP.

 

Maybe "Drive by poster", "Gone nordo" or "One-post Pat"  (no offense to the Pats out there).   Probably "Gone Nordo".  It seems the least offensive and maybe the nordo will come back up on the freq.

"Gone NORDO"... the first new thing I learned today! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORDO

 

Of course, maybe everyone doesn't camp on the internet like me.  You should hear my wife   :-(

I don't know how you get as much done as you do. There must be two of you!

[Kent Ashton]

Regarding the adjustable pedal - It results in your foot at an extreme angle, assuming your heel stays in the same place. Maybe OK for the rudder operation, but for braking, your foot, and feel, works best when it is not at such an extreme. IMO, anyway, from racing cars were the brakes are moderately important.

 

True, Barry, but rutan pedals don't get as much use as pedals in a car.  It was very handy to be able to move them back for my EZ buyer; it would have taken hours of work for him to relocate the whole pedal mechanism.

[Barry]

"True, Barry, but rutan pedals don't get as much use as pedals in a car."

 

Understood.

[Kent Ashton]

The interesting thing about the web and Youtube is that if you don't check them for a while, there will be new stuff.  Found this canopy-blowing interesting.  Gotta try that sometime.

and

The last chap doesn't show the finished product but you can see it in one of his other videos.

[Barry]

Hey, thanks. Interesting, did not know it was done that way. Gives me some new idea's.

[Kent Ashton]

I have been noodling with a revised EZ design.  It would incorporate some things I did on the last one but did not document: long nose, Cozy front-strut components, electric nose lift, more space for a battery, etc.  When I lengthened the nose last time, the original nose gear pivot ended up higher in the new nose which created a small problem.  Here I moved the pivot down and forward slightly to be flush with the new bottom and give more room for the larger nose tire and get it flush with the bottom.  That also gives more space to build a proper cover over the mechanism and NG box to stop drafts.  I don't know if I have another project in me but it's fun drawing it.  Also, I want to build in more positive longeron angle (+2 deg?) to help with rotation speed.

 

I will make it two inches wider in back and will change the engine mount system to that used in the Mk-IV.

 

[Voidhawk9]

There's been decades pass, hundreds or thousands of airframes, tens of thousands of hours of flight time, and many modifications tried in various forms (being proven or disproven). Yep, I'd say revisions are welcome and valuable!

[Barry]

"I don't know if I have another project in me but it's fun drawing it."

 

If you do start and would like a hand on occasion let me know.

[Kent Ashton]

If you do start and would like a hand on occasion let me know.

 

 

Ha!  YOU start building an EZ and I'll come give you a hand on occasion.  :-)

[Jon Matcho]

I am in the process of enhancing our guest room so you can come visit and give me some of that in-person motivation!

 

That's cool you're looking at improvements.  I am planning to CAD my Cozy IV nose so I know exactly what it will look like before I "sand to a pleasing shape".

 

Keep that coming Kent!

[Voidhawk9]

That's cool you're looking at improvements.  I am planning to CAD my Cozy IV nose so I know exactly what it will look like before I "sand to a pleasing shape".

 

Do it. I revised the whole tub in CAD to try to get a smooth, continuous profile.

[Barry]

Ha!  YOU start building an EZ and I'll come give you a hand on occasion.  :-)

 

I wish. But when I do you would be the first person I would ask for advice.

[Kent Ashton]

Do it. I revised the whole tub in CAD to try to get a smooth, continuous profile.

Yeah but that creates a whole bunch of adjustments to get that shape. Jigs, M-drawings, Sides, bulkheads, strakes, canopy, rudder pedals, canard lift tabs, control tube positioning, turtleback, armrests— they all gotta be changed. Maybe your legs now angle inward and your body sits at an angle. :-). A nose shape is a pretty easy change

[Voidhawk9]

Oh yes, everything changes. But I just modified the drawings for the bulkheads, jigs etc, and got the CAD drawing printed and built from those instead of the stock drawings. No, I won't need to sit at an angle, it is wider through to about F-10.

[Kent Ashton]

Without pics, I'm skeptical.  (But start your own thread, plz).  :-)

[Kent Ashton]

Posted for your interest:  There were several reasons I redrew this EZ nose.  (1) to make room for a battery, (2) to get a shape that pleased me, (3) to reposition the strut upper pivot for the different nose profile, (3) to try to get a little positive longeron angle and (4)  to use Cozy components because the manual lift and EZ wheel castings were NLA.  However, now I see that Nate Mullins is selling billet wheel components sized for the EZ. DUH!  However, I haven't seen his price yet so maybe the cozy casting is still a go.  The Cozy casting and wheel are a bit heavier, I expect.

 

Saw a discussion about weight on HBA which reminded me that weight does not have much impact on cruise speed but it makes a bigger difference in T/O and climb.  That is not to pooh-pooh the effect of weight.  A heavy airplane taking off on a hot day will get your attention.

 

I believe the plans manual lift could be used here if the arms are extended to get a little more extension so I drew-in the hardpoints for a manual lift.  It shouldn't be too hard to fab a whole manual lift if needed.  I could buy/make everything except the little spiral gear.  I believe Wilhemson's electric lift will work.  He advertises 7.3" of travel.  I show 7.33" so 7.3 might be enough but it's tricky when you are adjusting the switches for the full travel without encountering stops.  It would be nice to have about 7.8" of travel.  I built one of these lifts for the Cozy.  It takes some machining and welding but the longer shafts are available.

 

I like to build the canard to lift straight up and out for removal.  To do that, embed a threaded female long-nut or rod in the longeron and use a machine screw through a bushing as an incidence locating pin.  Cool huh!  :-)

[Kent Ashton]

Good article here about Klaus Savier's EZ.  The most impressive thing to me is the low fuel consumption:  6.6 gph for 231 KTAS (at 17,500').  That is probably at WOT, leaned to a fair-thee-well.  For comparison, my Cozy would see 6.6 GPH at maybe 155 KTAS and the EZ would see perhaps 175 KTAS at that FF and altitude.

 

It is fun to think what that EZ might have done with a small canopy, small wheel pants and reduced intakes for lower cooling drag.  Maybe 185-190 KTAS which is still a long way below Klaus's speeds.

 

https://generalaviationnews.com/2016/05/25/going-fast-on-less-gas/

[Kent Ashton]

I was talking to a chap about his cooling problems and thought to make an entry I can link to.  Here goes:

 

The best  way IMO to determine if you have an airflow deficiency or something mechanically wrong with the engine or CHT probes is to install a simple water manometer and go flying.  Lycoming says we need about 5.5" of water differential between the top and bottom cylinders to achieve adequate cooling.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2006/june/pilot/airframe-and-powerplant-(4)

 

I saw this idea to measure that differential at www.VansAirForce.com.  If you want to read the posts, search there for "piccolo tubes cooling".

 

Make 4 "piccolo tubes" out of soft small gauge aluminum tubes.  Make them the same length.  Drill them with tiny holes every few inches, pinch closed the open ends, and mount them above and below the cylinder heads in about the same locations (pic 1).  Use Tygon tubing to bring the tubes into the RCP and connect the tygon to two loops of clear PVC mounted as vertical as you can get them in the RCP.  Fill the manometer about half way with colored water and go flying. (pic 2)

 

On my EZ project, i could barely get 3.5" of differential and the engine would overheat so bad I could barely get up to pattern altitude.  After some changes I was seeing about 6" and the cooling was very good (325-340) in cruise (downdraft cooling, though)

 

I have found that aluminum-colored silicone sealant from the home stores is good to make cylinder baffles and seal gaps.  It sticks just fine to hot cylinders and the color blends better with the engine.  First make some poster-board templates, wet out a couple layers of BID with the RTV stuff, cut them to shape with the templates and stick 'em where you need 'em

 

Pic 3 is an idea for sealing around exhaust pipes, made from wood-stove gasket smeared with RTV and allowed to cure.  Pic 4 is an alternator seal.  You want some air going through the alternator to cool it but not around the alternator and not through any of those horrendous gaps between the alternator and the bottom of the engine.  Seal them somehow. 

 

Pic 5 is a dam on the upper cowl that the upper side baffles can seal against.  The plenum pressure s trying to push the cowl seal inward toward the top-center of the engine.  If the seal leans inboard, you can lose vast quantities of cooling air.

 

-Cylinder wraps- here I am just speculating.  Air must be forced to go through all the fins.   I eyeball the amount of open space between the cylinder fins (not just between the cylinders) and ask myself, "how big an opening do I need on the bottom side of the engine that will admit as much air as I need to push through and around the fins".  With that in mind, I build aluminum baffles or RTV wraps on the bottom to admit that many square inches of air. I usually have about a 3" gap, roughly.  I want to force that air to go into the bottom fins, then around the cylinders.   I do about the same on the top except I use the principle that an air exit must be bigger than an air inlet so the upper wraps do not wrap quite as much and have a bigger opening.  I figure that air that is blown up around and through the cylinders fins will exit the fins as soon as it has a chance and it does no cooling after that so the upper part of the cylinder fins need to be wrapped to force those pesky air molecules to stay in the upper fins until they've done their job.

 

Also  Lycoming cylinders have one side which has an obstruction in the fins that does not allow airflow from top to bottom.  In a pusher, it's the forward side of #3 and the aft side of #2.  The Vans folks have some ideas for making bypasses around that obstruction.  Hard to say if it's needed but one thing is for sure:

 

Those rascally air molecules do not like to go into dark, hot, confined places like cylinder fins and if you give them a chance, they will wriggle through gaps, holes, cracks and by the edges of the fins.  Bend them to your will!  :-)

[Kent Ashton]

I was talking to a chap about winglet misalignment and thought I would post a better discussion of a jig you can make to check it.  The plans method for winglet alignment is not the best, IMO, and you can read my problems with misalignment in this thread starting at post #49, concluding with cutting a winglet off and remounting it.  From the geometry in the plans, the winglet chord should be parallel to the aircraft centerline (which the plans do not just come out and say!).  (Pic 3)  The dimensions are for a Cozy but the EZ chord incidence is the same--parallel to the centerline.

 

This jig (see dxf file) was useful in the hangar to compare the aircraft's extended centerline to the extended winglet chord marked on the hangar wall.  It is held to the wing with a bungee and flipped for the other side.  With the jig it was easy to see I had one winglet a degree or so angled outward (see Scan.pdf).   This major surgery might be avoided, however.  Over the years, people have cut the winglet vertically somehow and adjusted it.  In my case, I needed so much rudder deflection, I figured it'd be easier to remount a new winglet.  You can see pics of the process earlier in this thread.

 

If you need the jig drawing in another format, let me know.  I wish I had used one when I was  building both airplanes.

WingletAlignJig.dxf

Scan.pdf

Edited May 14, 2018 by Kent Ashton

[Kent Ashton]

Updraft Baffles-Cozy:  Mine are not show quality but they do the job.  The metal is 6061 .025.  I use aluminum-colored RTV from the home stores as a crack sealant and to make wraps.  For the wraps and patches, make poster-board patterns, clean the fins with lacquer thinner.  Tape a layer or two of BID to your table and squeegee the RTV into it.  Cut patches of wet BID and stick them in place.  Make them a little larger than you think and trim after cure as needed with a razor knife.  Around exhausts and the alternator, make seals out of wood stove door seal as shown in the next post.  I was taking pics today and noticed I have a big curve in the silicone down near the alternator that is rising up and probably losing air.  It needs slitting to lie flat.   

 

An aluminum piece below the alternator is removable with a few screws so the alternator can be removed more easily.

[Kent Ashton]

Duh!

Edited May 28, 2018 by Kent Ashton

[Kent Ashton]

Ideas for exhaust and alternator seals.

 

See the note on my flywheel?  That has saved me a lot of cussing!

Edited May 28, 2018 by Kent Ashton

[Kent Ashton]

I finally go around to making limit switches for my pitch trim.  The problem is to make something that doesn't overly complicate removing the canard.  It might have been better to attach a rod (purple line) to the traveling nut and mount the switches to the back of the instrument panel; the movement of the rod would actuate the switches.  However, I didn't have a good mount point behind the panel.  This should work OK and the canard can be removed by loosening the trim motor hose-clamp, loosing the two screw-and-nuts clamping the springs in the traveling nut and pull the nut off the spring wires.