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unick3

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About unick3

Flying Information

  • Flying Status
    LongEZ N29TM

Personal Information

  • Real Name (Public)
    Nick Ugolini
  • Location (Public)
    Charleston, SC
  • Occupation
    Engineer

Project/Build Information

  • Plane Type
    Cozy III / Cosy Classic

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://www.canardzone.com/members/nickugolini/

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  1. Just to let everyone know, I will ensure there will be power, picnic tables and lights in the tent. We also have a presentation room at the lodge if anyone wants to use it.
  2. Hi all, I have confirmed the tent will be available at the field (Sam ordered it) as it was last year. I'll ensure lights, and electrical are there too. What do you'all think about setting up a meeting on Saturday night at the tent with the purpose of finding volunteers, task leaders, discussing ideas for RR 2009. It is a year off, but it is much easier to solicit ideas when we are sitting together than over the net. If we approach it as a team effort I think we could make next and future RR's much better than they already are. We have a lot of terrific people in the canard group with a wide diversity of skills who are always willing to step up and help.
  3. I was a tester for the Trio and have been flying both products a really long time. I find trips much more relaxing with the AP and AH and when in IFR conditions having an "additional pilot" in the plan is invaluable. If you do buy an AP, I have a good set of installation instructions posted at the bottom of my website.
  4. check out James Aircraft 12185 Schooner Ln SW Moore Haven, FL 33471 (863) 675-4493 I purchased my lamb time pants (he also has larger ones) which is the same as Lightspeed for $200. Great price and they are nicely made. Nick
  5. unick3

    Cooling Schemes

    Hi, I installed drown draft cooling in my longez with scoops on the upper cowls. I found it works extremely well. I used to have an O235 with a P51 type scoop and the cooling was marginal with great oil cooling. Now I have terrific 'out of the box', no mod engine cooling and marginal oil cooling (I am working on that). Overall, I would most certainly recommend down draft cooling for any of the canards. The issue is how do you accomplish it. Arm pits, NACA, external scoops? Who knows. For the LongEz's it is easiest accomplished with external scoops. Cant speak for the Cozy’s, but I would suspect NACA style scoops. I strongly believe in exhaust eductors. My plane has a rough approximation. Again, there is no hard fast rules, formulas, techniques for how it is accomplished. I cut, chopped and spent lots of time trying to figure out what went wrong. Unfortunately, this IS experimental aviation, and experimenting comes with a cost...time. Lots of time sent on trial and error.... I spent 7 months doing a 2 week engine replacement because I wanted to experiment. I am happy now, but 4 months into the project I most certainly was not… I would just recommend, hanging out, learning, going to air shows, and see what is currently working for people. You'll have LOTS of time to soak it all in and make intelligent decision on how you want to spend your time building... either quick or innovative (long).
  6. I have used the Fien tool for about 5 years, and wouldnt ever consider building a plane without one. It is a MUST HAVE. Get the HSS blade, but if you can find one, get the circular blade which looks like a piece of it has been wacked off. Years ago, I dropped mine and broke part of the circular blade off. Best thing I have ever done. A circular blade does not cut into flat corners and youll need to be able to cut up to a flat or veritical surface. The last time I went to the wood store, I found they now make a blade exactly like the one that I broke... imagine that. I have used mine to cut the gear legs off (1" thick of S glass), formica, wood, plexiglass, my propellor, kevlar, carbon and of coarse fiberglass.
  7. The main reason I can see for a parking break is when you taxi up to a parking spot, on a sloped ramp, the plane has a tendency to start rolling before you can get out. In these cases, I have to quickly jump out and stop it from moving before it gets going too fast.
  8. Hi all, When I started this forum I found it to be unbelievably taxing and stressful. Such a simple idea, so hard to implement. The difficulty came from coordinating with Nat, getting permissions to use the Cozy web site resources, learning the software, etc. After a while things smoothed out and then it happened all over again with the sale of the Cozy concept to ACS. Frankly, I burned out. When Jon approached me about hosting the website, upgrading the software and making significant improvements to the site at his own time and expense I was all for it. I am sure EVERYONE has noticed the tremendous response speed and virtually no down time lately. This is because Jon has put the forum on his dedicated server and has personally paid for the software upgraded. Jon should be commended on all the effort he has put into this site. In all respects, I feel Jon now the... for lack of a better term, owner, senior administrator, guru, head honcho, …whatever of this site. Jon and I still talk about improvements, discuss issues, offer advice, etc, but he has the final say. What does trouble me in reading some of the posts is from time to time the lack of respect some on this forum show each other. We are ALL builders, we are or should be friends, and we are in this together for the long haul. We should be respectful of each other. I don’t like or support the idea of editing posts, but I am all in favor of removing the privilege of posting on this forum. None of us would willing spend time with a person in social setting who is unable to show respect for others and it is no different on this forum. Jon and I will continue to discuss this issue and try to decide on how to handle this situation in the future. Overall, I am very pleased with the new look, feel and responsiveness of this site. Jon and I have talked about other ways to improve this resource such as a link page and a free web page hosting area. More to come….
  9. I had to chuckle a bit about all the bandwidth given to a few mph. Lets put things in perspective... On a trip to Atlanta (225 nm for me) for example at 190 mph it would take 1:11 hrs. At 220 it would take 1:01 hrs or a difference in 10 min. You could be vectored around by ATC for more time than that just trying to land. Not much savings to justify the cost difference for a Lancair from a Cozy IMHO. Is it really worth spending an extra $5k for retracts to save 10 min on an average trip with the possibility of doing a gear up landing (think $10k rebuild at a minimum) and the loss of flying time in your bird? A friend did a gear up in his Berkut. Cost well over $10k (engine) 2 new wings, new prop, and 8 months. I have had 2 gears ups in my plane for a total repair cost of $0 (just paint, time and left overs from the shop). A week repair time for the first event and lowering the nosegear and taking back off for the second event... Personally I think retracts are way over rated in our planes. A good set of wheel pants and gear fairings will get you a very fast plane at a very reasonable cost.
  10. unick3

    CSA Index

    Hi all, Terry Schubert was kind enough to send me the Central States Association index for the articles he has published. I hope you will find it useful when you do your research. There is a wealth of information and lessons learned by past builders. The attachment is about 400k bytes and is an excel spreadsheet. Enjoy. csaindex2003.xls
  11. These last posts has brought a sick smile to my face remembering how much trouble I had in the beginning, initially setting up the forum. I had to but heads moving things along, spent hours learning about setting up the site (multiple times), getting flamed by the email groups, and almost lost a good friend …Nat… before everything sort of smoothed out to where it is now. Although I don’t post many messages, I still spend hours on the back end doing maintenance on the actual data base end. Lets not loose sight that there are many improvements which still can be made by someone who is a professional in this business (which I am not) and I am looking forward to fresh ideas. Ron, I assure you I can teach you much more about plane building then you could ever teach me about computers. After going though this experience I can assure you that I only want the best forum possible and make the transition as seamlessly as possible. Nick
  12. I have read all the posts and at some point a decision has to be made and we have to move on. After reseaching the forum, personally purchasing the software, investing untold hours getting the Forum up and running and being knowledgably about the product and net services requirements, and eventually moving to Nats site, I feel qualified in making the decision. I feel Jon is the best choice for continued hosting of the board. I will make arrangement to transfer hosting of the board to Jon, who now has administrative rights to the software. I have sent an email to Jon to contact me about the move. I honestly think this is the best way to continue and dramaticly improve the Forum with the least overall disruption. Builders will still have control of the Forum, not ACS. The last decision to be made is the name (URL) the \forum will be located under. I have no feeling what so ever about this issue. I really appreciate all the points of view expressed. It made my decision much easier to make. Nick
  13. I would agree with Jon Matcho. Most discount servers have many negative issues with them and not even John knows the extent of the problems I have had with three different web hosts. It’s a whole other world of sellers, resellers, discount brokers, etc. I spent a lot of time sending emails to the support departments getting this site working on a constant basis. I STILL regularly recieve emails dealing with server problems. The main issue is that our current server shares its resources with many other customers, shares bandwidth, etc. Having a dedicated server will dramatically improve the Forum’s response and reliability. Jon sounds like he very knowledgeable of the vBulletin software and has an interest in improving the look and operation of the Forum. I have OFTEN wished someone who really knew code and software would take an interest to improve the whole Forum experience. Such things as better graphics, links to vendors (who could pay for the privilege) or links to other web site would be a great addition and could possibly help generate more interest in this form of communication vice email. My vote is to have the most reliable a capable server and support staff possible for the Forum and to accept Jon’s generous offer to host the web site. Thanks Joh! Nick
  14. I too would like to see the Forum continue on since there was so much effort put into starting up it by John and myself. I feel the Forum fits in nicely as an alternative to the moderated email lists. Originally, I purchased the software and set up the site (because I thought it was the right thing to do). Later, Nat agreed to pay for the software and host the site on his cozy web site. If Nat agrees to allow the movement of the Forum, then I would full support the transfer. My vote is for a free forum as a subscription type list would certainly limit access and I would like to thank those who have stepped up to the plate with their offers of hosting sites. Technically the forum is not hard to move. I had to do it twice when Nat changed servers. With a good hosting service, the administrators will move the entire site for you. Overall, it is basically only a file transfer process. The administration of the software is really easy and doesn’t require much effort. The only real requirement is that data basing software must be installed on the server to allow the forum database to work and bandwidth (we are way to small to have a problem with that). There has never been a specific pointer set to the Forum as the site just resides in a subdirectory of a main site. For example: if John hosts the site it would then be canardaviation.com\forum. Overall, I feel this whole process should be fairly quick and painless when we determine who will take this bird under their wing….. Nick
  15. for Steve Wright: Due to bad weather forecast for Saturday the fly-in at MQY will be moved to Saturday November 1.
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