Kent Ashton

Bottom line, I think this is one I'll hire out.

Never heard of anyone using airless sprayers for cars or airplanes. Aren't those things mostly for houses?

I've painted cars and my airplane outdoors with good results. Wait for a calm morning, get up early, spray before the wind comes up, have some tweezers to pick out the occasional bug, expect to do a little polishing later. With white finishes, it isn't hard to make something look pretty good.

I'd suggest try painting a wing or canard. If you are happy, paint the whole thing. A couple of outdoor jobs:

I painted a van recently with an Accuspray gun I found on ebay and a homemade turbine from plans published a few years ago in Fine Woodworking. It came out just as nice as the high pressure guns I've used. See p. 122 here

http://tinyurl.com/4c3s55

I've used the turbine a lot with an older style Sicmo hvlp gun with it and never got good atomization but the Accuspray is way better. I think the turbine is just a good as the commercial versions

http://www.dodgepowerwagon.com/glovebox/hvlp.html

The trouble with the true HVLP turbine guns is that they're expensive. With regular compressed air guns you can have several--big, small, primer--and toss them when they get too grungy.

-Kent

Use what you are used to. Conventional guns work just fine, just more overspray but not a problem. HVLP guns are also very good if you want to spend the dollars for a good one, the cheep ones are crap.

Ditto. For us amateurs, the skill of the painter has more effect than the gun. That said, the guns from Lowe's are a pretty good tradeoff in price/performance. I started using one of their smaller ones. I'd love to have a Sata but I probably couldn't see the difference over a cheaper gun. Preparation is the key. Get it right before you apply the primer.

-Kent

Did you get a pilot handbook with the Cozy III? There is a pretty good explanation of how to work through the weight and balance and the datum point to start with. As i recall, the starting datum point was the intersection of the strake and wing at the leading edge. I suppose that was used because it's the best verifiable point nearest the wing center of lift.

You don't need a pilot in the seats to figure empty W&B but you have to add pilot weight and moment when calculating various flying CGs.

It's a good exercise to reweigh your airplane. No telling if the original W&B was correct and how it has been altered over the years. The Cozys are a little tricky because you may have to place weight on the nose during the weighting process to hold the nose down. I used to put it right on top of the nose tire. Makes it easy to subtract the moment for the extra weight to arrive at empty C of G.

-Kent

If you decide to cut the leg, there's an article in the January 2001 Central States Newsletter describing how one fellow did it.

If it were mine, I think I'd first try heating the strut and bending it back to shape. I couldn't find an example on the web but I think others have done that when the strut was not too distorted. I suspect the outside of the strut is probably now in compression and the strands of glass are wrinkled on the outside and need to be straightened out. I would try to heat the strut exactly the same way the brake disk heated it--directing heat to the outboard side of the strut--and bend it back. You might rig up a stove-top element to supply radiant heat to the strut and attach some sort of lever to pull the strut back in position. I'd try to lever it back using the cooler inside of the strut as a fulcrum. I would not get the strut much hotter than the brake disk did and figure out a way to apply as much force as the weight of the airplane did in distorting the strut. Perhaps a sort of gear-puller type device mounted on the inside of the strut.

You might get lucky.

-Kent

Wow, that thing is beautiful but carbon fiber is $38 per yard versus, what, $6.00 for fiberglass?

http://www.shopmaninc.com/carbonpage.html

You gotta ask, what's it worth to save a few pounds? For a recreational use, it just isn't cost effective.

-Kent

Do you have to tap the cases to mount the crank sensor? If so, there is a progressive three-tap set from machine tool suppliers you can buy that will help out there. It taps the holes a bit at a time. Here's a picture of how my coils are mounted (on the cold side of the baffles). Use some diaelectric grease on the coil connections. I have had one fail from corrosion at the output connector

I would just insert a piece of wood--anything-- and glass over it with a couple of layers of BID. The pins that go in there later are not highly loaded. They just set the preliminary canard incidence. The canard incidence is really set when you clamp the lift tabs to the F-22 with some wet BID in between, later. I don't think my pins even go into that extra piece of wood. I imagine Burt/Nat called for it to give a little more area for inserting the pins. You probably don't even need the extra wood if your pins go into the longerons.

-Kent

I suggest you'll save yourself a lot of shipping charges and trouble by ordering the whole kit from ACS or Wicks. They are geared to selling small amounts of materials to homebuilders without minimums and high cutting charges. Wicks in Illinois might be closer to you. The exception might be epoxy, but I'd still get five gallons to start with. It will come on a large pallet by truck--at least mine did. It's a considerable waste of time to order onesies and twosies and wait for materials and deal with individual companies who want to sell truckloads at a time. Stick with the homebulit suppliers.

-Kent

You might be interested in this article for non-builder owners. Lots of good info

http://www.ez.org/nonownerguide.htm

-Kent

Do you know anyone who put controls in the back of a Cozy?

Not offhand but As far as the stick goes, it'd be just like putting a stick in the back of an EZ. Might need an extra universal joint in the linkage but very easy to do.

A second throttle would be more complicated. Perhaps fixed linkage-a 2024 tube- from front to back throttles with a disconnect link in the tube and the main push-pull cable from the front throttle as the Cozy IV uses. You would want some way to overcome a jammed rear throttle or some way to insure the rear throttle is never jammed. Perhaps a removable rear throttle lever when carrying luggage in back.

Rudders are just cables. Form some toe-loops in back and fly barefooted.

-Kent

Have you reviewed maddy's site? Probably lots there

http://www.maddyhome.com/canardpages/main

This is a Cozy III I used to own. Don't have a good backseat photo, there were no controls in back but they could be put in pretty easily.

If you expect your wife to fly in the back of a Vari, you ought to find one locally and let her try it out. My wife wouldn't like it although she is pretty happy in the Cozy front seat. Depends on the lady. Some are pretty hardy lasses. Mine is getting old and cranky.

As I understand it the wing attach is not a problem if you build it correctly and keep it dry.

Ever heard of the Rough River flyin? Tons of canard airplanes show and worth a trip from Texas if you are thinking canards.

-Kent

I don't know why someone would build a Vari unless they are planning to set fuel consumption records or plan to trailer the airplane to the airport a lot. The Long-EZ is no more trouble to build and just slightly more expensive to operate. And the plans are free, here! I vote Long-EZ. There, it's settled.

-Kent

...... bottom line: I'd be real surprised if that airfield is still open in 5 years.

If the airport took federal grant money--and most of them have--it has to stay open for 20 years after the latest grant or the city has to pay back the money so it's pretty hard to close an airport. This Aviation Director is just posturing about excluding Experimentals, too. The FAA does not favor individual airports restricting who, when and where folks can fly, thank goodness.

Good to be aware of Grant Assurances, especially #22 & 23. You can sometimes wave them at an airport manager like giving the-sign-of-the-cross to a vampire.

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/airports/aip/grant_assurances/media/airport_sponsor_assurances.pdf

-Kent

The whole point of this thread is how can we improve our image.

If this crash had involved a CE-172, even under the exact same circumstances, that Aviation Director would not be calling for termination of single-engine fixed wing operations and no reporter would have seriously asked the question.

The problem is the "strangeness" of Experimental aircraft. God knows, the public knows so little about us and the words "Experimental", "homebuilt" and "homemade" just guarantee public recoil.

The best thing you can do is invite your local reporters and editors for an airplane ride or just to come see your project and talk about it. Give them some appreciation for the care that most of us give to building and operating our airplanes.

-Kent

i am not interested in building. i do not have the time nor do i trust my mechanical ability with the lives of my family and friends. therefore i will be purchasing a completed and proven velocity or cozy four.

If I were you, I'd stick to certified aircraft. With an Experimental, it's best to have a personal interest in maintaining the airplane, even if you didn't build the particular airplane. There can be many non-standard things in an Exp. airplane and you have to enjoy working on them. Often you'll find A&Ps or AI's that do not want to take the time to understand your airplane or take the the liability risk of working on it.

I love Exp aircraft but it seems to me that your life would be so much less complicated with say, a CE-172. That said, the Velocity seems to fit your needs better than a Cozy.

-Kent

Is it possible to shrink a set of long ez plans to a single seat so you could use a engine set up like the french cri cri but as pushers? Or even a small briggs n stratton?

Sort of like this, or did you have something bigger in mind?

http://www.s128420402.online.de/catalog/brutanlongezbbrcanardsportmodellarf145cm-p-178.html

Seriously, it's certainly possible but you'd be the first, AFAIK. It's tricky, I hear, to just scale down an airplane--something to do with Reynolds Number. Also stuff like control sticks, rudder pedals, and fuel switches are what they are, and have to be kept about the same size. If you want a tiny airplane look at the Hummelbird, Quickie, KR-2. ;-)

-Kent

This is not valid for epoxy hardeners. If they show crystallization they most likely have reacted with carbon dioxide and should be discarded. They too might be ok and it might just be one of the components crystallizing, but most of the time it's a sign of them having gone bad so it's better to be safe than sorry and throw them out.

Oooh, a rich builder! ;-) I would use that kind of hardener (and have) for fairings, seats, armrests, wheel pants, ramps in the cowl, fillers, contouring. Lots of uses for it and I've never had any that did not cure hard.

-Kent

And I wouldn't throw away that contouring foam either (the white Clark stuff, right?). Use the pieces. It will be just fine. They are only to give shape to the fuselage.

-Kent

Hi Chaps,

Rolled my project out this week to flip it in preparation for glassing the strakes. Got the strakes glassed and sumps installed. Found two leaks--the same spot in each tank--at the top of the tanks where the tank bulkhead meets the side of the fuselage near the gauges. Should be an easy fix; I forgot I hadn't taped the upper-inside corners of the storage area. -Kent

Brrrr, that's ugly! In a Cozy or EZ it wouldn't be that hard to saw away the strakes and build new ones. In a week of hard work you would have them back on, clean and pristine.

I don't know if that'd be practical on the Velocity but it doesn't sound much harder than scraping, cleaning and repairing your existing tanks. Something to consider. It might also work to remove more of the tops and take a sandblaster to the opened tanks. Good luck with it.

-Kent

Unused P-51 style glass-kevlar-glass cowls for a Vari. I don't have the nose piece for the P-51 scoop which extends forward of the firewall. Not a biggie; you would probably want to modify the lower cowl anyway to a NACA inlet or downdraft cooling.

$200 located in Concord, NC, north of Charlotte. They are boxed for shipping but too large to go US Parcel Post and truck shipping is likely more than the cost. Best if you can pick them up. kjashton@vnet.net 704-784-1874

-Kent

Also try Barnstormers.com and David Orr, who brokers canard airplanes

http://canardfinder.com/

Falcon Insurance in Austin, TX insures experimentals.

Personally, I don't think hull insurance is worth the money. The most frequent accident is landing with the nose gear up which you can fix yourself.

You might look at a Cozy III, too. Comparable performance unless you are a porker. The III likes lightweight pilots. Good luck.

-Kent

Looks like an early but decent looking airplane. Old radios, GU canard? (hard to tell), old style P-51 scoop, football wheel pants. A lot depends on your assessment of the engine. Does it have a starter or do you hand-prop it? Price seems a wee bit high to me.

=Kent