Kent Ashton

A funny, sad story: I had a friend nearby who finished a Long-ez. He had not flown for years and took perhaps 15-20 hours to pass his biennial with a CFI in a spam can. After that we flew in the Cozy for 4-5 hours. He was not very proficient. He had learned the old Cessna habit pattern: "pitch controls speed, power controls altitude". That works very well in a Cessna but less well in a canard. On base and final, power WILL control glidepath or altitude over the long run but a slick airplane like a canard will often just get fast if you don't make a pitch change with the power. We talked about how his Cessna habit was not helping. He needed to control base glidepath with the stick, ie., maintain a constant glidepath and use power to control speed. He understood it intellectually but couldn't apply it in the airplane. When he started flying his EZ, observers saw him landing like an X-15: screaming. He could barely get stopped. After a few flights some pine trees grabbed his airplane as he was rolling out final; he was lucky he didn't get killed. When asked what happened, he said "The airplane got low on base. I kept adding power but it would not regain the glidepath."

From the Cozybuilders list yesterday. A tub on the main gear

They don't get any cheaper than this. $12900 in materials, asking $1500 https://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/avo/d/marietta-cozy-mark-iv-fiberglass/6791532178.html (H/T Marc Z.) Also this one on B-stormers. New one? COZY 4 PROJECT. MANY EXTRAS • PROJECT FOR SALE • Cozy 4 complete thru chap 13. precut wing cores. Too many extras to list. Call for pics $6000 OBO • Contact Les D. Behrens, Owner - located Pflugerville, TX USA • Telephone: 512-294-8966 • Posted January 18, 2019

Canard interest is spread-out on the net like bird-watchers wandering in a huge forest. They want to get together and share their bird-finds but they can't find each other. A couple of them are together over here, a couple over there. It's pitiful. If they would coalesce in one place, they'd get more enjoyment out of [owning canard airplanes] and sharing their experiences. For example, there is this site, CanardAviators.com, EZ.org, CanardCommunity.com, Socal EZ Group Squadron III (Facebook), Rutan Longez and Varieze (Facebook), Cozy Aircraft-Canard Avaition [sic] (Facebook), Cozy MarkIV (Facebook), Cozy Mk IV Pilots and Builders (Facebook), the Cozybuilders google group, the Canard-aviators yahoo group, Terry Schubert's Central States Association. Recently there is David Orr's Squadron III newsletter and lonely personal blogs like Longez Neightfourdr (Facebook) and Varieze nfoursixez (Facebook). I also know of a couple dozen personal builder websites. Some are active, some are dead or nearly so. They do not share. Newbie's ask the same old questions and reinvent the wheel. Like some of you, I refuse to join Zuckerberg's corrupt organization Other sites and lists are interesting and serve a good purpose but the effect is to spread the community out thinly. We do not have a Rutan or Puffer sponsor we can coalesce around. Persons interested in canards have to find builders and flyers where they can. For that reason I choose only to post on this web-based site and urge you who may come across my thread to ditch your Facebook memberships and post here. Your pics and comments will not dribble down to the bottom of an ad-filled FB page and be lost in obscurity. With the "search" function, you can actually find information. Over 23,000 people have looked at this thread and over 47,000 have looked at my Sales I've Seen thread so there are folks out there who will read your posts if you make the effort, talk about your experiences, and post a few pics. Thanks to Jon for hosting this site.

Seen on the cozybuilder's list today: A Cozy Mk IV project in Pennsylvania. $12,500 in parts and materials (see PDF file). Seller want $4500. Bob Newman of this company https://www.tcwtech.com Cozy MKIV Parts.pdf

New one today. No pics or price. 2006 vintage N88ED https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/NNum_results.aspx?NNumbertxt=88ED VARIEZE • AVAILABLE FOR SALE • Well built. O-200, glass cockpit, empty wt 640lbs, night eqp, oil filter, approx 1760ttaf. • Contact Jeff Martin, Owner - located Fayetteville, GA USA • Telephone: 3107224555 • Posted January 11, 2019

Yup, if you can get most of what you need without complaints, feds, and lawyers, that’s the way to go, I believe. Still, it’s good to have the rule on your side. The FAA publishes these Assurances and rules but does not want to jeopardize an airport’s federal grants in order to enforce them for one aviator. So you can show a blatent case for illegal airport rules and the FAA will blow you off. They can invent excuses you can’t even imagine. For example, In my case the FAA approved of my eviction from KJQF because I complained under 14 CFR §16 and by exercising that 1st Amendment right to “petition for redress of grievances” the FAA held that I constituted a “litigious financial burden on the airport sponsor”. When I told them the Constitution guarantees a person’s right to complain without suffering airport retaliation, the FAA said “we can’t address Constitutional questions”. Grrrr. I have heard horror stories about folks painting in hangars and getting paint mist on their neighbors’ airplanes. I painted two airplanes in my driveway and they look pretty decent. Pick a calm Fall morning, get out there early before the winds pick up and have some tweezers ready to pick off the occasional bug. Actually, my spraying skills are a bigger problem than dust and bugs. Glad you are making good progress. I will come see your project sometime. Not far away.

Sorry you lost that one. Let us know what you think of N44TJ but when a seller is demanding de-registration and you know the engine has problems, it better be pretty danged cheap. I wouldn’t drive very far to see such an airplane unless the seller understands that. There will be others—lots of old EZ builders are aging-out these days. Wait for the estate sale! 🙂

Yep, nothing is a slam dunk with the FAA but I believe the intent of the rule, as expressed in the opening summary, was to stop the use of hangars as public storage facilities, cheap office spaces, or storage for cars and boats, etc, and to open up hangars to aircraft repair and construction (see the initial Summary). With that in mind, I think the language "the sponsor may adopt more restrictive rules" was mainly intended to mean "may adopt more restrictive rules about things that interfere with aeronautical use". Also, although the Summary specifically says that aircraft repair and construction are recognized aeronautical uses, a more restrictive rule that would likely pass FAA muster might prohibit welding and spray painting in a hangar or restrict maintenance to daylight hours. Anyway, it was a striking change for me to see this new rule in 2016 because in 1999 the FAA held in a complaint I filed that homebuilding and simple repairs were NOT aeronautical uses and I could be booted off the airport for complaining about it. What I want to do is make people aware that there is a rule in their favor that can be cited when airports just flat say "no work in hangars."

A little discussion of airport law: My nearby public federally-assisted municipal airport requires a Storage Permit that prohibits any maintenance in leased hangars. This prohibition is illegal but I am not based there so it doesn't affect me. Nevertheless, this sort of prohibition is not unusual at federally assisted airports. Last year I read of a McKinney, Texas RV builder who encountered the same prohibition at KTKI. A private airport owner can do what he wants. In 2016, the FAA published a rule that aircraft maintenance and aircraft construction are aeronautical activities that must be reasonably accommodated in federally-assisted airport hangars. Read the rule yourself at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/06/15/2016-14133/policy-on-the-non-aeronautical-use-of-airport-hangars These rules eventually become part of the Grant Assurances that obligate airports built with federal funds. Violating the rule violates one or more of the Assurances, usually #22 or 23. See Assurances here https://www.faa.gov/airports/aip/grant_assurances/media/airport-sponsor-assurances-aip.pdf If you encounter this sort of prohibition, first bring the illegal prohibition to the attention of the airport sponsor (municipal owner) in writing. Then you have the choice of making an informal complaint to the applicable FSDO under 14 CFR § 13 or a formal complaint under 14 CFR §16. Next, these airports often use a storage permit clause that says "you agree that we can terminate your lease with or without cause" or "for any reason" (i.e., at will). This too is illegal. Nearly every state has a law that says a municipality is allowed to operate an airport so long as the public is granted the "rightful, equal, and uniform use of airport space, area, equipment and improvements." Here in North Carolina it is N.C.G.S. § 63-53. Google "airport" and "rightful, equal and uniform use" and your state and you will usually pull up your own statute or search your state's aviation statutes. In Florida, for example, it is Florida statute 332.08(1)(c). When an airport requires you agree that you can be terminated at will as a condition to granting you a storage permit, the airport is compelling you to give up your "rightful use" of the airport space, area, equipment or improvements [i.e. hangars]. The law calls it an "unconstitutional condition". If you encounter this sort of rule, you will have to seek relief in a state venue--usually a district court. The FAA does not enforce state laws.

I tried to attach the PDF but I am byte-limited for some reason. Anyway, it comes up OK for me. This airplane, N44TJ, mentioned back in April '18 here. No recent news AFAIK. https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/21972-sales-ive-seen/?do=findComment&comment=61483

Seller of N80CZ reports he has sold. Cozy III with O-290, was asking $29K. Sale price not reported. Mentioned here. https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/21972-sales-ive-seen/?do=findComment&comment=62741 Pictures sell! 🙂

Today's B-stormers: No pics. Beg for them. VARIEZE PROJECT 50%+ COMPLETE • AVAILABLE FOR SALE • VariEze project. Work/live change so can't finish. Please contact for pictures and info. • Contact Dana R. Groothuis, Owner - located St Louis, MO USA • Telephone: 402-304-8666 • Posted January 6, 2019

This video is interesting. The engine failure appears to occur at no more than 250' AGL. There is plenty of open water to ditch in. It appears he wanted to make it to the open field and at 20-25 seconds he appears to have a flight path vector well out onto the open field but fails to maintain it. He seems to have adequate speed (no horn heard) but only at the last second figures out he's going to hit the berm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94IURXCoY5A ---------------------------- Nose wheel futzing: My nose wheel bearings would get loose. First, I made aluminum bushings for the bearings that met in the middle of the rim. They were sized to take all the slack out of the bearings. That worked for a while but the bushings ride on a narrow circumference of rubber on the outside of the bearing which seems to wear; the bushings themselves probably wears a little, too. The bearings got loose again after a while. This time I took a bit off the inside and outside of the bushings and used wide washers to bear on the rubber seal, leaving about a 1/8" gap between the bushings. This will allow me to take out the play by tightening the axle bolt and nut. Make the device the same width as the NG forks. I tried to load a pic but for some reason, I am limited to 122Kb

It seems to me that Best Glide is not the speed to fly here. I would say it's the Minimum Sink speed, typically a lower speed, i.e., just on the edge of nose bob. We are not trying to glide any distance, we're trying to turn around with the least loss of altitude while maintaining position over a point on the ground. Play with this calculator http://www.csgnetwork.com/aircraftturninfocalc.html 65 Kts/45 deg bank/360 turn takes 21.5 sec with a radius of 376' 80 kts/45/360 takes 26.5 sec with a radius of 570' At the higher speed you are sinking faster, taking more time to make the turn, and flying a longer flightpath. N'est pas?