Hello from the Pacific Northwest

[C Dub G]

Hi everyone!

 

I'm new around here and have been trolling a bit for a week or so and am getting more and more interested in canard aircraft. I have been dreaming about building a kit aircraft for many years and recently stumbled upon these beautiful, versatile, unique pieces of work around here.

 

It may be a couple of years before I can get started on something, but right now I'm sort of honing in on the Cozy IV. I like it's performance, number of seats, and possible construction price. I am open to persuasion though.

 

If anyone knows of people building or owning a project in my area (Spokane, WA) I would love to be able to take a look their work and maybe take some inspiration from them. Don't worry, I'll try not to take too much away .

 

I've also been sort of curious about the advantages/disadvantages of canard vs. the more conventional style of aircraft. I've found a little out there, but we all have our biases. I'm working on my bias toward the canard as I type.

 

Sorry for the long introduction, just trying to inspire a little conversation and start my education. From what I've seen I have a lot to learn from everyone here.

 

So hello and have a great evening everyone.

 

Clark

[Phil Kriley]

Welcome!

 

In my opinion, the most important thing to do before buying a plane or building a plane is to define your MISSION. What do you need the plane to do? How many people, how much baggage, how far, how fast, off-field or grass runways, short runways, long paved runways, cost of ownership, fuel efficiency, etc.etc.

 

Once you have answers to those questions, find a plane that best fits your mission. All planes are compromises - none do everything perfectly.

 

We owned a Beech Musketeer, and it was very roomy, comfortable, carried a lot, held lots of fuel, could fly off grass, etc. But it was not very fast, parts were expensive and sometimes hard to find, and I spent a LOT of money keeping it inspected and flying.

 

The Cozy Mk IV holds 4 people that like each other a lot, but won't leave much room for baggage. It's very fast and efficient, but does not like short or grass fields. It takes a lot of work to build, but that's a PLUS for me because you can spread the cost out over a longer period of time.

 

You also need to figure out if you like working with fiberglass and epoxies or if you'd do better with metal. I took a metal class and my parts were functional but not pretty. I took a fiberglass class and my parts turned out really good. But composites are messy and sometimes you have to make sure that you can start a layup and work it through to the end w/o stopping - that's never the case with metal.

 

So there's some stuff to chew on! If you care to list your mission requirements, folks here will be happy to tell you whether the Cozy or Long EZ or one of the other canards would be a fit, or if you should look at building a metal conventional plane or even purchase a used certified plane.

 

Again, welcome aboard!

[Edge 513]

With a RV being built/completed every other day. [That is a fact] They are THE bird to go with for most people, IMHO. They are very easy to build and all holes are pre-drilled so you just assemble it. If you could build an erector set assembly as a kid...you can build an RV. Some of them are great performers and can be pretty fast. 4 seats wanted, they have 'em.

 

'Course if you want the pretty molded shapes that come from a composite structure, metal kit planes aren't the answer. These land fast and therein is probably the only thing that fellow hanger-rats have trashed me on. Nothing beats the lines of a nice composite airplane, and the benefit is it's slippery in the air and a great trip-maker due to speed. Only you know what you want to fly, but for vanity's sake, and that's pretty shallow, 10 people crowd around a Longeze or Cozy when it arrives, compared to the 2 looking at the RV on the ramp. If that does something for you.

I like futuristic stuff so it did for me.

I also very much like the learjet nose and don't care for a prop in the nose, it's just not "jetlike"..so having the spinner in the back allows that awesome jetlike nose that I have ogled for so long.

 

Good luck, and a big welcome!

[Big Steve]

C Dub G

 

The Edge man is right I just got back from Osh last night. There were RV airplanes everywhere. They covered at least 40 acres of ground. They are pretty and do lots of things well. They are easier to build than a canard. But the canards still beat them on the looking cool factor. Decide what you can afford and what you want to do and then go for it. I probably should have built a RV living in Idaho lots of grass strips and places to visit my plane will never see. I flew back in a Arrow 12-13 gallons an hour going about 130 knots. My Cozy when done will kick its butt and do it around 9-10 gallons an hour. Plus it will always fly like a canard and have the cool look factor. Go to Oshkosh next year and you will come home with favorites. STeve build on

[C Dub G]

Thank you everyone for the replies. They have all been very helpful and informative. As far as my mission let me start of by saying I'm finding it somewhat difficult to not define my mission by the aircraft I am looking at, at the time. Maybe that's because what I'm looking at fits my mission, maybe that's because I don't REALLY know what my mission is yet. But I believe I can answer the questions Phil asked atleast for now.

 

How many people: ATLEAST two people, but 4 would be great to fly the family.

How much baggage: I believe this could be flexible in how much is brought, ability to carry golf clubs would be nice though. (will they fit in a Cozy?)

How Far and Fast: As of now I don't plan any east coast trips, but who know?

Runways: I've head people saying they're places they won't be able to go because their plane can't land there, as of right now I think that is acceptable to me.

Cost of Ownership: Like many others I'm sure this should be as low as possible while still doing things right.

 

While yes it is a very superficial thing to think, the Cozy does have a lot of "ramp appeal" to myself and others. I like something that is different as well as does what it does very well.

 

I also like the fact that when my plans-built plane is done, I will know 100% of it, rather than possibly the 51% I would know with the kit.

 

I would absolutely LOVE to get to Oshkosh or any other large or small fly-in so if anyone has another fly-ins they can recommend, I'm all ears.

 

Thank you for the advice so far, I can't wait to hear more.

 

Clark

[steve]

what part of the north west you in ?

im in fircrest wa (tacoma) you could come buy tomarow and help cut some wing cores ???

[C Dub G]

Well unfortunately Steve, I'm on the east side of Washington in Spokane. I would be there at 6 a.m. knocking on your door though if I were on the West side of the state . I greatly appreciate the offer though and I hope your project is going well.

[steve]

Well unfortunately Steve, I'm on the east side of Washington in Spokane. I would be there at 6 a.m. knocking on your door though if I were on the West side of the state . I greatly appreciate the offer though and I hope your project is going well.

well thanks, it is going very well(time for the other shoe to drop).

i did get some help from this forum for tomorrows wing cutting.

and you are welcome anytime.

[mfryer]

I am also a short hop south of Steve here in Olympia, if you come over to the cooler side of the state (ha ha) you can check out my Long-EZ project as well.

 

I'll be filling in for you on the hotwire job since you can't make it.

[mcjon77]

I'm sure most of us were in the same position of trying to chose which airplane to build. Here is a method that I found REALLY helpful in making the decision.

 

Make a chart with 4 columns. The first column is NEED. Under this column write down all the things your airplane MUST HAVE for you to build it. For some people, they absolutely must have 4 seats. For me, I only needed 1. However, I needed a cruise speed of AT LEAST 100kt. Anything less, and it wasn't worth building.

 

The second column is REALLY WANT These are things that are almost needs, but you would sacrafice one or two in exchange for something else. They aren't absolute deal breakers, like the things in the needs column. For example, two of my REALLY WANT items were 2 seats and 125kt cruise. I could do without them, but given the choice, I would be willing to pay a bit extra for the features, as long as I could afford them.

 

The third column is WANT. Things that I would like, but none of them are really necessary. They are obviously less important than REALLY WANT

 

The fourth colum is NICE TO HAVE Certainly not critical, but some nice extras. This is more of a wish list than anything. For my list, I had things like 4 seats, STOL, aerobatics, 200kts cruise.

 

Also, keep in mind, it is OK if something in one column conflicts with something in another. You are, in all likelyhood, not going to get everything on all columns in a single plane. Also, once you start building, you may find that somethings just are not important to you. thats fine.

 

Once you have this list, you then look at your budget, both in terms of money and time. From there, look at what planes fit you budget and how they stack up on your columns. You really don't want to spend a bunch of time building a plane that you can't afford to own/fly/maintain.

 

I found that this method really helped clear the air as far as what airplanes fit my needs and which ones did not. As an example, I was looking hard at a Just Aircraft Highlander. The plane is a STOL monster, and there are videos of guys doing all kinds of back country flying that looked cool. When I compared the plane to my columns, I realized it was completely wrong for me. I want to do long cross countries and that plane can barely reach 87kts. The Backcountry stuff was cool, but living in Illinois, I would have very little use for it.

 

Also, being realistic on the budget helped me greatly. The one guy that I absolutely DID NOT want to become was the guy who builds his dream plane but must sell it because he can't afford it. I know of several guys like that.

 

One other thing. As Budd Davisson says, don't be a pioneer when it comes to homebuilts. Build something that has a good track record (like a cozy or long-ez or even an RV). One of the planes I was looking at looked great. The only problem with it is that only the prototype had been built. In effect, I would be the guinea pig, figuring out all of the problems with the construction manual (NO first edition construction manual is perfect/error free).

 

By building something that already has a history, not only do you get a more realistic understanding of the airplanes performance, most of the problems you will have in the build have already been experienced by someone else, someone who found a solution. I problem that may have taken the first builder weeks or months to solve, you will have a solution in minutes or hours after reading what he did. In a lot of cases, those problems no longer exist in later editions of the kits/plans.

 

Hope this helps,

Jon

[steve]

I am also a short hop south of Steve here in Olympia, if you come over to the cooler side of the state (ha ha) you can check out my Long-EZ project as well.

 

I'll be filling in for you on the hot wire job since you can't make it.

i wish you could be here to see the fruits of your labor:D

the first wing i did spent a month in the jig with nothing but cursing and thumb nail biting.

your wing cuts are already coming out of the jig today.

Evey were i go on the wing in fine all 5 fit gr8.

I'll be starting the blended end i an hour or so.

once again, many thanks

 

PS. if you need a hot saw buddy,this guy can count to 15 with out missing any numbers

[mfryer]

i wish you could be here to see the fruits of your labor:D

the first wing i did spent a month in the jig with nothing but cursing and thumb nail biting.

your wing cuts are already coming out of the jig today.

Evey were i go on the wing in fine all 5 fit gr8.

I'll be starting the blended end i an hour or so.

once again, many thanks

 

PS. if you need a hot saw buddy,this guy can count to 15 with out missing any numbers

My thanks to you Steve for the hot wire training. I guess two years of thinking about it may have prepaired me for the task a little bit.

 

Anyhow the exersize has given me some confidence with cutting my own wing cores when the time comes.

 

I think we completed cutting all your left wing and (upper) winglet cores in under 3 hours, not counting your preperations. I never imagined it would be that EZ.