Kent Ashton

From the Cozybuilder's list today: 2003 Lloyd Gimple build https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N142LE Pics here http://www.hassel-usa.com/photo/Cozy-Albq/Album1.htm

I see that a chap named Ashton (no relation) is planning to build a Twin-engine EZ using two Aeromomentum engines. https://www.facebook.com/groups/25741482604/ He has the engines and posted a pic if his idea so I guess he's pretty serious about trying it. I wonder if this fellow has read up on the previous efforts at twin-engine EZs? http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=2139 http://stargazer2006.online.fr/derivatives/pages/twin-ez.htm http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=5252 They have not been very successful AFAICT. His two engines appear to weigh 185 each _dry_ (pic 2), then there is the weight of watercooling X 2, extra structure to support the engines, extra mount, cowl, and prop. Maybe he's an aeroengineer and has it all figured out but I suspect it will suck up hours of work and then prove a costly mistake. Why am I writing this? In the hope that he will stumble across TwinEZ in a google search and study what has been tried before. Or maybe we have some FB members here who will link to this. Google and the forums have preserved a wealth of canard pics and discusson over the years but it appears to me that half the people posting on FB are not aware of what's there and what has been attempted before. The first URL above says it was reengined as a single. I don't know what happened to the second airplane. The 3rd URL airplane was bought by our friend Zubair Kahn who rebuilt it as a single and crashed it. tags: twin engine Long-ez twin engine longeze twin engine longez coscio ivan shaw

Just thinking about props: I put a used 3-blade Performance Prop on the Cozy-- a "64 X 76" prop marked "26.7° by the manufacturer. Ok, so that is 64" diameter, 76" pitch at the 75% span meaning the geometric forward travel of a perfect prop is 76" in one revolution. I measured the actual chord angle as closely as I could and got 26.75° so I presume the manufacturer's "26.7°" was a measurement of the chord angle (some prop builders quote the flat side). This prop did not give me enough RPM--maybe 2550 in cruise. Well, I broke a tip off this prop during a tip-back and it became a "61.5 X ??" prop. I say "??" because shortening the prop changed the 75% station where pitch is usually specified. I measured the chord angle at the new 75% station and it came to 29.5°. Working backward from from 29.5° chord angle that gave a new pitch of 81.7". (BTW, shortening this prop did not make very much difference in cruise performance. I don't recall exactly but I might have gained 25-35 RPM from the original diameter. What made a big difference was thinning the tips which I discussed here.) http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=5170 However what got me thinking today was that in theory, I went from a 64" X 76" prop to a 61.25" X 81.7" prop using normal measurement techniques. That seems like a whopping change--5.7" more pitch (but of course about the same pitch at the original 75% station). So even though this prop now measures-out as a much higher pitched prop; I get more RPM out of it. Of course, thinning the tips was a big change that reduced tip drag so it's not a good controlled test. I have kept track of prop sizes as people discuss them and you won't find very many specified at 81.7" pitch. Jan Carlson, a prop designer who posted a lot on HBA said that the difference between a climb and cruise prop was usually about 2" of pitch.

That’ll work. I built in my basement. Building can get pretty messy but the smell and fumes are not very bad. Yes, the Eureka are a good price, good quality, and will save some time. Cold wx does not affect these airplanes but i would not fly in ice, heavy rain or nasty IMC. The plans heat system probably needs improving for Canada. There are some Canadian builders on the Cozybuilders list.

I agree with Marc. I replaced a winglet here https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/18661-kents-long-ez-project/?page=3 It's a rather large job. Yours looks quite fixable.

Hmm, just realized that I told a lie. I had a rack made of two 2X4 uprights with some pipes where I kept two rolls of cloth. I would reel-off glass as needed and threw poly over them to keep the rolls clean . Something like that would be easy to build and if it had rollers, it would've been more useful. No need to build a big bulky cabinet. BTW, Here is my #1 top building tip: When you finish with an epoxy brush, squeegee out the excess, put it on a paper towel on top of a piece of poly. Saturate with some MEK, roll it up in the towel and poly with a bit of the towel exposed to air and weight it with a brick. Next day you will have a brand new brush and you don't use a lot of solvent. ?

I never had a glass cabinet. I kept the glass in the plastic sleeve. I had a piece of clean poly marked "this side up" that I would put on the dirty work table, roll out the glass and cut it. Build airplanes, not infrastructure ?

Ok, will try this again: 3.5 hpq. I can make the same reduction (2750-2400) by leaning the Ellison at WOT. Yeah, FI is nice but when folks ask me about my Ellison I estimate it'll give them 85% of the performance advantage that one would get from FI. With the Marvel carb I had, I'd get a well-defined lean point where the engine begins to stumble. With the Ellison on the Cozy, I can lean and lean until the engine won't run anymore but it's still very smooth. On the EZ, the engine would reach a point where there was a bit of stumble but it was still very lean. I suppose the decider for which to use-FI or an Ellison-is money and/or the desire for maximum HP. There are no hot-start problems with an Ellison, either.

Yep, qph not gph. :-)

These exhausts are not from my Cozy but they reminded me of something I've been puzzling over: My exhausts were too black. Apparently I have just not been leaning enough because on a recent trip to Ohio I really leaned the heck out my Ellison TBI and the exhausts were a nice tan color like the lower one here, on landing. I was flying at a reduced power setting on that trip and had the Ellison mixture almost all the way back to cutoff. It was so close to cutoff I took the cowls off to check the linkage and make sure I was getting full-throw on the mixture lever. At about 2400-2450 RPM and 7500 to 9500 MSL I used 25 gallons in 4.4 hours or 5.68 GPH including taxi, climb and letdown. However, I have one cylinder, #4, which is noticeable blacker and I think it is using oil--maybe a shade darker than the upper exhaust here. My oil consumption is about 3.5 gph--not very good. Lycoming says high oil use can result in detonation. The maximum is 2 quarts/hour. Some hours ago, I honed and re-ringed #1 and #3 and their exhausts look OK. It bugs me because all four cylinders were professionally reconditiioned at an earlier date, I was careful with break-in, and three of the four have used oil. When those cylinders came back from the overhauler, I did not remove the pistons to examine the hone and the cleanliness. That's a mistake I won't repeat. Typically, the overhauler inserts the pistons and you only have to pull them out far enough to install the piston pin and connecting rod. Another thing I saw when this engine was new (before the last recondition) that bothered me. I found grit in the engine--I can't recall if it was intakes or exhausts--as if the overhauler did not carefully flush the cylinders after honing. Geez, can you trust anybody!?

I propose sawing about 1/4" off the edge, dig out some of the foam, insert new flox and glass over it. That'd give you about a 5/16-1/4" radius" at the edge. You might want to build up the flox and let it harden, then sand/file to shape before glassing. Glass is heavy, though. Little things like that add up. ?

Here's a good motorcycle wheel balancer I use as a prop balancer. It is very well-made and a thin #10 washer on the prop tip will make the prop rotate so it has low drag. Easy to setup on saw horses or tables; notice that the bearing holders on the ends have flat sides. The 1/2" rod fits my 1/2" prop hole. If you have other sizes you might be able to use the cones or use some 1/2" bushings that fit your prop hole. It also works well for balancing aircraft tires. I was amazed how much weight to took to balance my nose tire--musta been a couple of ounces stuck to the inner rim. http://www.marcparnes.com About $100

Saw this on a FB page. Interesting (and cobby) home-blown canopy and some funky woodwork but he has some good parts. Here is the poster if you want to contact him. Seems to be in Canada https://www.facebook.com/evangelos.b

This Long-EZ on Barnstormers. Might be N933BP owned by Charles M. Mullins; did not find a Deven Mullins owner in the registry. The ad is a little strange. An '83 EZ with fully retractable gear? "prop:0"? What does that mean, zero time or zero prop? It has a rather high-time engine and "needs wiring". I expect his price is a little ambitious. [quote=]1983 LONG EZ • $40,000 • FOR IMMEDIATE SALE • TTAF:1585, Lycoming O-360 TSMOH:1456.4, prop:0 Fully retractable gear, nose extension, needs wiring • Contact Deven Mullins, Owner - located Locust Grove, GA USA • Telephone: 7707154378 • Posted July 15, 2018

I just shake my head when a seller posts no pictures, gives limited details and then says "no tire kickers". Can you imagine a car dealer with a sign out front saying "no tire kickers"? I shouldn't even post this. Don't ask any questions, just show up with a trailer and cash. ?

Nice clean Q-200 today. I don't know much about them but I have read that the main gear at the end of the canard is a bit problematic and you will see some built with gear mounted closer to the centerline. Cool little airplane though.

test 1, 2. Ah, much easier to load pics now! Here are some odds and ends. My prop is this far from my exhausts. One blade gets the most exhaust but it's glassed and I have never seen any degradation of the glass. BTW, It was a waste of time to cut the pipes on an angle. Next, a way to install a fitting for fuel pressure on a fuel pump elbow; it is drilled and tapped with an NPT (tapered) tap. Next, a way to mount a combo oil pressure switch and oil pressure sensor on the engine mounts. Next, an alternator seal made with stove door glass braid; pardon the messy RTV. Lastly, a way to mount an Earls fuel filter with the Ellison

I think there is more to it than that. I'm thinking that if the location of the axles isn't correct for the new CG (if the CG changes), the airplane may have more or less weight on the nose and be more easily tipped-back, or slower to rotate on takeoff. Locating and readjusting axle location can be a lot of work. A forward-canard could have more leverage and more easily drive the wing into wing-stall or at the very least the ideal incidence might be different from a standard EZ which is a lot of testing and adjusting. If the canard lift vector is more forward, the aircraft center-of-lift might be more forward even if the CG is balanced to the standard location. I would think that if the distance from the center-of-lift to the CG gets bigger (the aircraft C-of-L is forward of the CG) the airplane might be less responsive in pitch and the canard-size might need be greater or smaller. I might be overestimating the effects but I don't think it's a trivial change.

Saw this deal on a FB page. The poster has previously posted a lot about his project on CanardAviators; should be easy to find there. I dunno about the 10" stretch. I presume it was to balance his engine but these airplanes are somewhat finely balanced. Anyway, lots of stuff for the price. His website here: https://sites.google.com/site/garagerocket/ Significant to me: "I don't have a pilot's license yet." There is a natural order to things--fall in love, get married, have children. Violate the natural order and bad stuff happens.

Jon, Good for you. Would you be able to merge CanardAviation? There's not much traffic there now but it's a good database. I just looked a your CanardZone Facebook page which I didn't know about. Just thinking it might be a mistake to setup a CZ-to-FB sharing link. Already there are several FB sites for canards and you just saw one of our new members here trying to interest people in his FB Cozy IV site. All these sites just dilute the participation and keep people from finding a good, active website like CZ. It seems to me that if posters here link to FB, some of those discussions will continue on FB and become dead-end threads here. I had a FB account for a few months so I could post on a particular canard site but I deleted my account; it wasn't very satisfying. Frankly I want to stay as far away from FB as possible. I try to link to CZ URLs when possible in my travels around the web, hoping to get people to find this site and join up. -Kent

Most original builders figure out the antennas as they go along but if you are buying a canard airplane, you might not know about Jim Weir and his antenna book. http://www.rstengineering.com/rst/products/plasticplaneantenna/plasticplaneantenna_files/2802%20Manual-s.pdf The most complained about-problem for years and years is that Jim is slow to fill orders for his kits. You can buy the cable (usually RG-400) cheap on ebay, the toroids from Digikey, and copper foil from a hobby supplier, a stained glass supplier or cut it from rolls of thin copper sheet. Put Comm antennas in each winglet!

Seen on the Cozybuilder's list today.

I didn’t do any tuft testing. The airplane Is sold now but most of the tinkering and testing I did were to improve cooling. With a bulky engine that terminates in a prop, it’s pretty hard to make a cowl with a ideal taper. I was able to use a 6” prop extension. Most guys use an 8”. That would have allowed a litte finer taper.

Lots of stuff! Who started that project? Post some pics

Saw these pics (1,2) on a FB page. The chap was asking about improving the flow in the circle (He might just have been getting a pressure pulse from the prop, I dunno.) Anyway, what grabbed me were the size of those cowls. OMG, that's got to be causing more drag and prop inefficiency than the piddling disturbance at the boat-tail. Taking some measurement off his pic, it looks like 7-9% of the prop disk area is blocked by the cowls. Then there is the drag of that blunt rear-end. Imagine what the flow is doing: It comes over the cowl. It can't make the turn over the forward cowl bumps without separation and turbulence, so a turbulent flow maybe several inches deep rolls over the cowl and is streamed into the prop. Moreover, part of that flow has to fill in the space left by the aircraft and turn a sharp corner at the aft edge of the cowl to do it. Can you imagine the turbulence there--right where you would like to have organized smooth cooling air coming out of the cowl and organized smooth flow into the prop blades? When I built my cowl (pic 3) i was trying to avoid a big blunt cowl but, of course, I used downdraft cooling so it doesn't fully apply here. Nevertheless, my EZ cooling was terrible until I added those two outlets below the cylinders. My initial idea was to have most of the exit-air flow out around large exhaust pipe holes, however, that didn't work. The two outlets made a huge difference. I closed down the exhaust shrouds, too. One might say, "OK, I will use those sort of bottom outlets but I will put them on top because I have updraft cooling." They might or might not work because the bump-turbulence above the cowl doesn't promote good flow out of top exit. Many people have tried louvers and ducts on top of updraft cowls. Sometimes they work, lots of times they don't. I like thinking about these aero problems but they are very hard to test and compare unless you have the patience to completely rebuild the back end of your airplane and see what works best. I would love to discuss these ideas with the FB OP but not on that worthless format.