Kent Ashton

Here's a picture of the LEZ MLG mount angles. I took them out and retrofitted bulkheads. -Kent

The Cozy IV main landing gear uses a bigger, heavier strut. Maybe 25-30% more glass there. The Cozy also mounts the MLG between bulkhead with lots of layups reinforcing the bulkheads. The LEZ mounts the strut on some aluminum angles bolted to the sides of the fuselage. AFAIK, no one has had problems with the CZIV gear mounts, but the LEZ mounts sometimes develop cracks in the angles, and have been known to tear the sides of the airplane in a high-stress landing. For me, the CZIV design is just more robust in that area (and heavier). I'm building a LEZ now using the CZIV bulkhead-mount idea. Just about ready to install the gear. I expect it to be an improvement over the original LEZ mounts. Picture attached -Kent Cozy IV flying LEZ building

The fun begins . . .! A prop extension usually helps these birds but I'm not sure what Vari owners use (I'm a cozy guy). Klaus Savier put nose gear doors on his Vari but said he couldn't see any difference is speed, however his cooling improved. Are you a subscriber to the Central States Newsletter?It's an excellent canard resource. If you can borrow back issues to read, you'll get so many ideas, your head will spin. Enjoy! -Kent Concord, NC Cozy IV N13AM

You know, it sounds easy enough to do but whenever you start deviating from plans, there's a lot more head-scratching than you'd think. The Cozy wing is bigger, landing gear and gear mounts are stronger than a Long-EZ, engine mounts are also stronger. The Cozy carries more because it has more layups--it's just a heavier, stronger airplane. The Cozy IV plans are newer and more complete. It'd probably be easier and safer to build a luxurious tandem Cozy IV than to up-scale a Long-EZ. The result might not be quiteas fast as big Long-EZ due to the greater surface area, but yeah, it's certainly doable. Add several years to the building process, though -Kent Cozy IV N13AM - flying Long-EZ - building

Another cheap brush cleaning trick: Squeegee excess epoxy out of the brush, lay it down on a paper towel. Wet the brush/paper towel with MEK or acetone and roll the brush in the towel, wrap the brush/towel in a piece of plastic and weight it with a brick. Next day you'll have a virtually new brush and you only used a couple tablespoons of solvent.

It's pretty easy to check if the breather is clear, unless you might have had it ice up. Put some air to the breather hose and see if it come out of the dipstick tube. If the crankshaft seal is bad, there is info out there on how to replace it with a one piece seal. It involves heating the seal in some hot water and stretching it over the prop flange. There are two-piece seals but they're unreliable on a pusher, I hear. I'm sure your friendly A&P can tell you the details. Sorry I don't have the full procedure. --Kent

I appreciate your concern but I don't think Burt gives a darn who his building his design these days. His concern is avoiding liability. We can help him out by disassociating our airplanes from him. Call it something else. Modify it. Never represent that you used any plans derived from a Rutan design. That's the best thing you can do for Burt. Then, if you feel you owe him something, send him $500 in cash in a plain brown envelope. -Kent

The nice thing about these airplanes is that you can fix stuff pretty easily. It just looks intimidating if you haven't worked on one of these. It looks like most of the nose gear box is still there, the nose gear hard points are still intact so it might be a pretty fast repair, once you get some new nose gear parts. You might want to add a 1/4" steel skid plate at the top of the nose gear. Been there. Good luck. -Kent Cozy Mk IV

Yikes, he must have been smoking on touchdown. I landed my Cozy III nose gear up with two people in the front seat and it only ground away a patch the size of a pie-plate. This is major rhinoplasty. --Kent

If you put in a center stick, you'll also probably put the throttles on the left side and your copilot will be lose access to the throttles (unless you're going to put a second set on the right). My Cozy is set up for right seat pilot now--I fly it from the right side. If I was doing it again, I would just build the standard configuration. I have flown from both sides for 40 years and the transition is not a problem but there is little to be gained by flying from the right seat, or flying with the right hand. If you are a righty, it makes it hard to copy clearances and if you fly the Cozy from the right side it's a bit harder see the R/W in left-hand patterns. I don't like the Velocity stick because it seems to sit higher than the Cozy sticks. That might be to clear the nose gear box as Wayne suggests. Bottom line: I would build per plans. -Kent Cozy IV N13AM

You're not thinking balancing scale, are you? By 'scale', I think most folks mean a postal scale. If you dispense right out of the can (punch a hole in the top, seal with a screw) or squeeze bottle to the postal scale with a spreadsheet to give you the resin-to-hardener values, it goes very quickly. The pumps are great but expensive and you gotta keep 'em clean, keep CO2 out of the hardener, etc. -Kent

I would theenk a Cowzy would be a gryyt ehplane for a beeg country lyke Australia but dahn't you blokes have probleems fynding enough haad surface runwhys for theem? ;-) -Kent

I try to ventilate my basement when working with EZ-poxy but in the winter I just tolerate the smell. I've never had any ill effects from EZ-poxy (that I could distinguish); actually, I can't recall anyone reporting ill effects from the odor although it surely doesn't help your liver to breath the stuff. For the typical builder, I don't think the odor is much of a problem. The ez archives and cozy archives had had some excellent posts. Gary Hall and Gordon Bowen are a couple of epoxy experts. Look for their posts. For example, go to http://www.maddyhome.com/cozysrch/search and do a search for "EZ-poxy amine" --Kent

There's lots of info out there. I favor EZ-Poxy for most things but MGS wets out a little easier when doing spar caps. Take a look at Cozy Newsletters: http://www.cozybuilders.org/newsletters/ Cozy builders archives (search for epoxy): http://www.maddyhome.com/cozysrch/

I'm a Cozy builder but I looked at my Long-EZ plans and it looks like you're right--I didn't see any jig shown for giving curvature to the sides. But . . . the cozys use a simple jig, two long pieces of particle board cut to the curvature of the sides and bonded to the work table. The foam sides get weighted into the shape of the curve and temporarily hot-glued in place, then the inside glass and longerons are installed. I'm sure you can find some pictures in the builder pages at http://www.maddyhome.com/canardpages/main It'd be easy to take width measurements off the EZ bulkheads and make a similar jig to give shape to the sides. You might want to add a couple inches to the back seat width while you're at it. (Nat added a lot of tips and info in the Mark IV plans.)

Why don't you tell us something about yourself and what kind of airplane you're building (there are several canard versions)? If you're building a Long-EZ, the plans call for a simple jig on the work table to give curvature to the sides. If you don't have Long-EZ plans, they're available on a "TERF" CD. Search this site and the site below for TERF or "open EZ". http://canardaviationforum.dmt.net/

UV damage causes the epoxy matrix to weather away leaving the fiberglass weave showing. The surface will begin to look like a layup that barely had any epoxy in it. You sometimes see this on the fiberglass wingtips of Cessnas/Pipers that have been abandoned in the sun for years. It's very obvious. If the paint is intact and the structure looks good and passes the tap test (no delams) it's probably sound. Canopies will craze after years in the sun but might still be OK after some buffing out--or they can be replaced. I would look for corrosion at the hinges, buried aluminum hard points, wing bolts and signs of fuel leakage. Most things can be repaired Good luck.

The Long-EZ is a great little airplane but the Cozy IV has a lot more utility and the design benefits from integrating a lot of Long-EZ changes over the years. The Cozy plans are better and more detailed and the Cozy gear is sturdier. It doesn' take much more money to build and operate a Cozy vs. an EZ and you can throw a lot of stuff in the back of a Cozy. The downside is the need to shuffle ballast around in the Cozys.

Never seen one. I took a steel AN834-6 (or you could use an AN804-6) T-fitting, cut off one of the short legs and tapped it for a steel AN816-3 NPT-to-flare fitting. Routed the line off the -3 end to the primer solinoid and used a AN924 bolt and small aluminum angle to secure the 834/804 fitting to the firewall.

Can't answer your question but here are a couple of tips that might help: -Let the wire temperature stabilize before you start a cut. -tighten the wire after the temp. stabilizes -the wire will cool in the foam, so expect the cut-rate to slow down after about 3/4 to 1 inch. -if you are using wood templates, you might put some 1/4 inch copper tape--available from stained glass shops--over the edge of the templates to make the wire run smoothly over the templates. Personally, I like formica templates. -when you pause at corners, listen for the hiss to stop, then move on - Replace the wire after a few cuts so it doesn't thinout and break. - don't force it. Just gentle pressure. Let the wire do the work

I had a Great American prop on a Cozy III O-320. Seemed to run just fine. Great American had a good reputation for many years. Heck, it was just a sturdy, well-made wooden prop; I don't know why someone would have great difficulties with that. Of course, you had to get the right pitch and size. Yeah, a person might get better performance out of a more modern thinner, carbon fiber/wood airfoil. Doesn't sound like the prop is his problem.

With updraft/NACA, you have to create a rather complicated sealed plenum below the engine by using extensive baffling and, as well, add ramps in the bottom cowl to force the air up through the forward cylinders. This baffling is a lot of work to fit and troublesome to seal up. Air does not really like to flow into a NACA, so the opening has to be bigger than for a ram opening. You're also generally pushing heat from around the exhaust pipes up through the cylinder fins. With downdraft, the plenum above the engine can be made much smaller and more easily sealed. Ram openings can be fairly small. Less air is used and it is used more efficiently. There are no real good plans AFAIK for how to do a downdraft installation but lots of pictures out there of how various builders have done it, so a resourceful builder can do what all real homebuilders do: steal, copy and/or borrow.

The FAA doesn't care where you got the plans or whether you have a license to build the airplane. There's been a lot of discussion on building from copied plans on this website, so read some of those discussions to get up to speed. The problem with any of the Long-EZ plans is that there have been so many good modifications since the plans were published that it takes some study to determine what mods to do and how to do them. Why not build a Cozy IV? The Cozy plans are more detailed and the airplane has a bit more utility. Cost would not be much more than a Long-EZ.

If you can get ahold of "Top End", a book published by Light Plane Maintenance, the book has a good discussion of whether to top an engine or overhaul it. If your's is a high-time engine since a (real) major overhaul--more than say 1500-1700 hours--I wouldn't just top it, I'd do a major overhaul. They are not hard to disassemble, send all the parts out for inspection/overhaul, and (with some A&P help), reassemble. However, O-235 parts are said to be a fair amount more expensive than O-320 parts because there were far more O-320s made. If you decide to do a major overhaul, I would suggest trading the engine in for an O-320.

How has this engine/prop combo performed in the past? Is the airplane new to you? I'm an east-coast flatlander (775' field elevation) but it seems to me that at your field elevation (6675'?), even a new engine would not make 2700 static RPM. At your elevation and at the 2250 RPM you're turning, the engine might only be making 60 or 70% power--just a guess. Perhaps some folks who fly at your elevation will comment. You might check that the carb butterfly opens fully at WOT.