Kent Ashton

Can you do this?: On downwind, or just anywhere around the airport, pull the throttle to idle and land around the 500' mark at a normal 65 KIAS or so without touching the power. I can usually do that 8 out of 10 times. It's not easy to do in a canard. I did it once for real when my idle mixture was not adjusted correctly. If you want to practice that, here are some things to think about. - You must know the pitch picture to hold best glide speed of about 80 KIAS. In these airplanes, a second's inattention to pitch will get you 95-100 KIAS which is difficult to get rid of. You must be able to hold 80 KIAS while maneuvering the airplane. -You need to be comfortable with a full rudder slip and know how much you can widen a base to lose unwanted altitude or speed or feel comfortable with a tight base low to the ground. -You must fly aggressively, Often I have had new pilots fly the airplane into a bad simulated landing because they did not take aggressive action to slip, widen a base, or cut off a base to achieve a touchdown at reasonable speed near the numbers. It was like they just flew their normal pattern and hoped it would work. Not good enough. - As you aim for the 500' point, you must always remember that in a real engine-out situation, you should normally be aiming 1/3 down the landing zone. -You must know the winds and allow for them in the pattern. Winds make a huge difference. One technique is to imagine how far the wind would blow you in the time it takes to fly a pattern and start with your touchdown aimpoint that distance upwind. As you get closer your imagined TD point moves back towards the real TD point but especially as you roll out on final flying into the wind, you must account for the amount of headwind tending to land you short. - You must be ready to say "This ain't going to work" and abandon an approach for a better alternative. A few years ago I helped investigate an accident nearby where Velocity pilots flew their airplane from downwind into a lone grove of trees that killed one of them. (pic) They should have recognized early that getting to the runway "ain't gonna work". Possibly they could have crashed in the open field and lived. At my airport, I have some references I like to use for testing my proficiency. There is a taxiway 2200' down; it's tough to make that one. There is a fence off to the side 2900' down. If I can't stop by that one, I go home depressed. ? It is said "Get to the ground in control and don't hit anything heavier than your airplane. You will usually survive the accident." "In control" also means "at reasonable speed". Anyone can fly a Cozy into a 110 KIAS touchdown. That ain't gonna work. I would be interested in how many active canard fliers practice this.

Here is a DXF file of the winglet alignment jig I mentioned earlier in this thread. IMO, it's a much more reliable way to align a winglet although the wing must be mounted on the aircraft to compare the winglet chord to A/C centerline. The plans do not say so directly, but doing the trig shows that the winglet chord is intended to align with the A/C centerline. It is worth moving an airplane outdoors to mount the wings, determine the A/C centerline and get this right! WingletAlignJig.dxf

I see there is an EAA chapter in Guntersville. My old Central States roster shows 10-12 canard owners in Alabama but my roster is out of date. You know about the Central States Association, right? http://eaa683.org https://www.eaa.org/apps/chapters/chaptermap.aspx

Review this thread to determine a price https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/21972-sales-ive-seen/?tab=comments#comment-49057 Sounds like you might get $2000-$3000. The best place to advertise is Barnstormers.com

Jon, it was intended as a joke. Marc know hows much I respect his work and opinions

It doesn’t take much heat to make a Cozy tolerable at say, 15000’ and 0 deg C. There is a lot of solar energy through the canopy. We just use the wimpy plans heat to take the chill off our feet and fly with heavy cotton pullovers. A well-sealed cockpit almost negates the need for heat. I wouldn’t like to carry around an arctic-grade heat system I might only need once or twice a year. Better to just wear two pairs of wool socks. Nevertheless, my Ford Ranger heater (in my truck) will blast me out at full hot, even in cold wx so I would guess that a heat exchanger half that size would be quite enough for a Cozy However, high heat rises to the top of the truck cab and a hot head isn’t comfortable. Less heat but directed around feet works better with a clear canopy—or wear two pairs of socks twice a year and build a light aircraft. Light airplanes are not sufficiently appreciated.

And soon you'll be joining me, Mike. : - )

A couple last lessons from my hot-cylinder story: It seemed like my torque wrench was applying way too much torque on the plugs. A while back I welded two old sockets together so I could compare my clicker wrench against a beam wrench. Holy cow, the clicker was at least 10 lb/ft off! There are some decent tutorials on how to recalibrate the clicker wrenches. Below is one. Good to know because just taking one apart is not intuitively obvious although they are fairly simple. This time I scribed the position of the calibration-adjuster nut for a quick check for future use. I had screwed it way off. Frankly, I didn't understand how the clicker's worked until now. Bet I'm not the only one, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEZ-ajSksHs I bought one of those Vivdia Ablescopes to have a look at the exhaust valves. https://www.amazon.com/Vividia-Ablescope-VA-400-Borescope-Articulating/dp/B00GY7C9ZW/ref=sr_1_2/136-3577512-8573310?ie=UTF8&qid=1535143738&sr=8-2&keywords=vividia+ablescope My exhaust valves looked quite good (pic) 700 hours on this engine. I see a little oil collecting in the bottom of #4 that I must keep an eye on. The oil-burning problems I have had all occurred on the professionally-overhauled cylinders. The cylinders I honed at home seem to be good. http://forum.canardaviation.com/showpost.php?p=69232&postcount=41

This EZ today. N64LZ, 1996 build. Second owner (or somebody) put a lot of work into spiffing it up. https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=64LZ

There are lots of builder sites. https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/32503-a-heapin-helpin-of-builder-links/?tab=comments#comment-61295

Well sure, if you are some sort of rich inspector-of-canards charging innocents confiscatory amounts to bless their ill-informeed purchases and can thereby finance a mega-buck FI system. I am using a wick soaking in parrafin that only works after the wood fire is brought up to termperature.

Spruce AC-1 spinner in good condition, cut for 3-blade Performance Prop, was used on a Lycoming O-360-A engine. For SAE-2 flange (4 3/4” diameter, 1/2” prop bolts) Center hole 2 5/8” Prop hub thickness 3 7/8” $150 shipping included. About $336 at Spruce For a pusher! http://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/st/manu_acs_spinners/ac1.php

The dams were not my idea but I do not recall upper cowl dams in the plans. Regular floppy baffles will work there but they have to flop in the proper direction. The main thing is to have no air leaks. It's amazing all the little pockets around a Lycoming cylinder and crankcase that will accommodate air leaks. My CHTs at this time of year (summer here) average about 375-380. On the EZ with downdraft, they were 25 deg. lower. I built the cowls to Nat's plans but did not find the cooling all that even. Below is what I have in the lower cowls to try to direct more air to the forward cylinders; those are about my 3rd iteration. The CHTs move around a lot. You can get them pretty even at one speed and then change speed and they are 15-20 degrees different. Also, you can see in the pic above where I tried upper cowl louvers at one point and later removed them.

Tricked again! After a plug change I noticed that #1 was showing noticeable hotter CHTs than before--maybe 25-30 degrees hotter CHT and it was going over 425F in a climb which I don't like to see, although it WAS a pretty hot day. So I swapped in some new plugs, futzed around checking for an intake leak, test flew, pulled the EGT sensor out of the exhaust and had a look (normal) and finally borescoped the cylinder. All looked normal. Then I noticed that I had gotten sloppy and installed the upper cowl with the upper baffle folded inward so that plenum air was leaking around the baffle (pic 1). I mounted the cowl correctly and voila (or "wall-ah" as some folks say), problem solved. I used dams on the upper cowls. It is just one way of doing it but the upper baffle must make a good seal against the plenum pressure below. I have seen some new installations where the upper baffles flopped inboard--a guarantee of cooling problems with updraft cooling. Pic 2 is how it normally looks.

Cross-posting this ad. (I like to keep a complete record ? ) Lot of parts here

Cross-posting this ad here today: Nice looking project. He doesn't say but I guess it's never been registered.

If I was building this engine would interest me. It's an A1A model, about the simpliest versions. Sounds like a runout that could be cleaned up and used maybe without a teardown for another 500-700 hours. You would want to see copies of the logbooks. If the cylinders are first-run cylinders, that'd be good. The order of thinking for me is: Best case, the cam and lifters are OK and the cylinders can be used as is. Next case, they can be honed, re-ringed and used as is (I have done that a home). Next case, they need new rings, pistons, and valve work. Next case, they are second run cylinders that might not pass an overhaul without major work. So there you go ?

A newbie friend of mine was surprised to learn you could use auto plugs in an airplane! And with magnetos! (He is paying 32 Euros per plug). I gave up magnetos a long time ago but G3i sells the instructions for how to modify the mag caps for 8.5mm auto wires. http://www.g3ignition.com/magmod.html Here is a Van's discussion with pictures of the process. http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=143892 I have used 18mm Autolite 386, Bosch M8ACO and a Champion version without inserts but mostly I used 14mm NGK BR9ES in 18mm inserts. Frankly, I can't recall why I started with the NGKs+inserts; I probably read that Klaus uses them. ? The 14mms and the 18mms seem to act the same in the engine. I have never run a controlled test. However, I was comparing the two plugs (pic- an old NGK and a new Autolite). The 18mm Autolite seems to have a long electrode compared to the NGK. Ordinarily a plug with a longer electrode is slower to conduct heat away and is a hotter plug due to the longer heat path--but both types seem to run at about the same electrode color.

Here is a project you may have missed: Bob Setzer's A-Solution. His last post in this thread is 2013 so it may never get finished it shows some outstanding work. I spoke to Bob at Sun N Fun this year and he said he was hoping to get back to it. http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=4928&highlight=A-solution I snagged a couple of pics from his thread

Excellent, Keith, and you are much further along than your pics show above. I hope you will just keep the FB page as a place-holder and put the rest of your project here where real canard builders are interested in it and can track the progress. ? I am linking to the FB page which has many more pics. https://www.facebook.com/pg/Raptorairworks Do you have an estimate yet what it's going to weigh compared to the Varieze? It looks as if you will have room for a second seat. Possible?

Real good price on this EZ project in California today. Looks good. I like the Sharpie marks showing on the center spar; it shows the builder was taking care to get the BID laid out nicely. If you like the Eureka cores above, you can get almost the whole freaking airplane for a little more. Don't let the winglet problem bother you. I replaced a winglet in my Kent's EZ Project thread.

DROVE to Kenosha, Wisconsin to see some relatives this weekend. This is about a 3+30 trip in the Cozy but two days and a night in a motel by Subaru. The weather was just too bad over the Appalachians to get out of N.C and still pretty bad on return. I don't think I would have filed IFR even if I was current. Normally I would just put the trip off a day or two but the wife had a family reunion scheduled so we had to be there. Sure makes one appreciate the airplane. On the way back, an SUV drifted way over into my lane and gave us a fright. We spent a night at Grissom Air Reserve Base near Peru, Indiana. It's an old Navy and SAC base, originally Bunker Hill AFB. Now the larger base has closed but a smaller part is home to a Reserve tanker squadron. It has a really nice outdoor air musuem with a B-58 Hustler, among other aircraft. Worth a stop.

It's sort of unusual to see 7075 used. Is that what's spec'd? That alloy is a little more crack-prone http://www.totalmateria.com/Article17.htm I hate to throw shade my friend but your upper hole looks a little off center. I presume 7075 was used because it's a higher strength alloy but with the smaller edge-distance on one side and the possibiiity of cracking, you might need to reconsider. 7075 is also a little less corrosion-resistant that the usual 6061 and 2024. Maybe you can buy some 2024 bar and make one.

These Eureka cores on ebay today in Ontario, Canada. Item number 132728882325 Those are nice to have. I have not priced materials recently but it's said they are not much more than the price of the uncut foam billets.

A Varieze on the Dallas Craigslist. $3000! https://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/avo/d/1995-varieze-project/6649971095.html