Cozy Girrrl

If you can break away for the weekend, come down to Tracy Crooks Rotary Roundup and see and hear all about rotary powered aviation, last weekend of this month in Bell, Florida. We will be there with all of our mounting system hardware available.

At Rough River we previewed our new version of the Long-ez control system. Features: -complete from elevator rod end to the firewall bellcrank (except universal) -all hardware and fasteners included -Cozy Mk-IV type stick grip forks. -sealed ball bearings support the torque tube in 3 places. -all aluminum parts are alodined or anodized. -all steel parts are cadmium plated. This assembly is available custom built to size or with tubes up to 6" longer for custom fit to longer fuselages. The hardware and instructions make this easy for both new builds and retrofits.

We now have complete 13B/Renesis and 20B engine mounting systems for the Cozy Mk-IV, we are working on the tubular mount design to put these engines on the Long-ez as well. The concept moves the starter over to the cold/plugs side getting the starter out of the way of radiator ducting. The common easy way has been to move the starter to the exhaust side but in the case of the turbo engines this is not healthy for the starter. We solved a design/structural issue preventing moving it to the cold side with an elegant staggered spacer. The new redrive plate is a little smaller and lighter. This is a very robust mounting solution and comes out about a pound lighter than the former CCI mounting system. Mounting kits are complete with all fasteners and vibration mounts.

Woo Hoo Drew!!! This is going to be fun to watch Regards, Chrissi & Randi

Ken Miller sent me a couple of sets of what I was told were BD-5 main wheels which were the same as the nosewheels except they have bosses for the disk brakes, I'm writing a program to remove the bosses then true the wheels up before polishing them. Find the source for the old BD-5 mains and I'll crank them out for you. Regards, Chrissi

This is an unfortunate situation of Nat not being up to date about Matco, the company changed hands a long long time ago and all the parts and brakes were evaluated and redesigned, its a new company and new parts, only the name is the same. I guess I'll have to buy a Matco nosewheel and machine the appropriate spacers to work with it, anything is better than the Gerdes wheel, I swear it was cast in somebody's cat's litterbox. Regards, Chrissi

More fun with engine mounts, here are pics of the latest; it is a dynafocal type one and before you John Madden fans get out your markers, it's made verbatum to the Cozy Mk-IV plans. With respect to the uninitiated, all of the markups to the conical mount would not work and add unecessary weight. They won't work because its not a perfect world, there are engine components and accessories in the way. If someone wishes to purchase us a mandrel bender we'd consider adding a ring around the conical mount should you order one that way, as of yet we have not seen a single conical mount done in that fashion except one on a home built mount. Regards, Chrissi

Heres the deal, for whatever reason its even more pronounced on the Cozy than the tandem planes but Nat's plane was flown and tested with and without them, Jeff Russell flew the Aerocanard with and without them and said he would not fly without them. Steve Wright put half height ones on the Stagger-Ez, he says they seem to work and I believe he based his shorter ones on researching it in the community. We put them on because we are getting older and slowing down, by the time we get proficient enough flying the Cozy to really enjoy it we should be real slow and we are doing this because we want a plane we'll love, not a thrill ride. It's the idea of scraping a wingtip and being stranded until proper repairs are made that stopped us. Regards, Chrissi

John, A few things: Mike & Dick were able to build quickly because they had done it all before, no doubt a few times, you then "just know what to do" and the head scratching phase is not involved unless you have some medical condition that necessatates it =) Good example it took Randi and I 2 weeks to build the first wing and one week to build the second, as far as we could tell nothing changed. Second, irregardless of your reason for leaving off the lower winglets may I suggest at least a 3" lower winglet for three reasons: 1- first and formost, if you ever drag a wingtip (it happens more frequently than you would believe.. remember the are out there but also way back there-hint) and worse yet you are far from home, you have to ground your aircraft and make a huge repair... except for the paint, everything ground off is structural. A sacraficial lower is peace of mind. 2- contrary to many sources, they work, its when you get too slow on final you find out why. 3- if you don't take your rudders all the way to the bottom you don't break your rudders when your plane tips over backwards. Your call, can save you a lot of grief later. Also you don't need the notch on the lower trailing edge if you don't want to. Regards, Chrissi

Gentlemen, Before things get ugly lets take a look at a few things. Have any of you actually seen a Long-Ez or Cozy III Conical engine mount in real life? Recently? hmmmmmm? Jerry sent us the one that came with his engine off of a Cozy III, been on there awhile I think. They are not what I would call confidence inspiring. NOT being an aircraft engineer or a structural engineer I would not presume to pull a design out of my rear end and pronounce it Good and Holy by all things I hold sacred, for that matter I'd be reluctant to listen to anyone with a casual opinion on the subject unless they had specific and pertinent information with the experience and the history specifically with this subject, this includes certain self-proclaimed experts on some other list who sent me a marked up version of the 3D rendering from our own web site of the dynafocal engine mount... proclaiming imminent and certain catastrophic failure (as he always does). I did not have the heart to inform him that the very clearly rendered drawing was an exact representation of the plans Cozy Mk-IV Dynafocal mount.. I guess we all need to get the word out huh? In fact I'd just stay out from under them altogether. But we were talking about Jerry's engine mount. You guys sure have a knack for telling a mother her kid's butt ugly. Hoping that the pictures come out in the right order... Lets take a look at Jerry's mount, then the following two pictures are scans from Tony Bingelis's "Firewall Forward" ISBN 0-940000-93-8..sixth edition printed in 1998, lets see, the EAA has in fact been printing this same book since 1983. Now, is there anything in common between Jerry's Conical mount and the Conical mount illustrated in Mr Bingelis's book? Any resemblance at all? I'd sure hate to be accused of doing something original. I'm also smart enough to not presume I know how to design an airplane, I have no training or experience in doing so, that is why I defer to people who have the qualifications, information and experience. If you want to design cardiac catheters, endoscopes, surgical cameras, semiconductor test equipment or yacht hardware, I'm your girl. Manufacturing airplane hardware? I know nothing, its just a hobby I picked up so I strictly follow the plans, Randi and I would strongly suggest you do too Christine

Cozy and builders, Having built the tub front seat area and instrument panel to plans it is my understanding that this arrangement may not be optimal for someone my size (amazon)and other large pilots. Since this plane is for cruising the option of reducing the seat padding is out of the question. Jeff Russel pointed out that you should be able to pick your knees up past the panel to adjust your position, stretch and to make getting in and out easier. After sitting in his plane I agree. Hand in hand with this issue is the CG position. I'm ready to take the Fein tool and remove the seat backrest and shift it back. How much? I thought I heard someone mention tilting it forward but this seems problematic because my shoulder already is up near the lower edge of the longeron, therefor tilting would aggrevate this issue. Also the instrument panel, can this be moved forward an inch? Between the seatback, instrument panel and moving the canopy this tiny plane could be quite comfy, or even cozy These mods (seatback and panel) should take about a weekend. ...Chrissi