Marc Zeitlin

23 minutes ago, Coffman Automatics said:

... I would like to have your advice on the steps to take for the repair...

Generally, corrosion will occur on the top wing fitting before the bottom one, just because rain falls down from the sky, not up from the ground. So even if the cracking in the fill/paint is on the bottom, I'd want to examine all eight fitting areas (both wings, top and bottom, strake and wing). So here's what I would do as a first step:

I would very carefully (and it might not be too hard, as the micro fill that most folks put over the AL plates doesn't stick particularly well, so it may just pop off with a bit of prying or gentle persuasion, being careful not to scratch the fittings) remove all the micro and fill on ALL of the aluminum wing attach plates. This will at least allow you to see the exposed portions to examine them. If there's corrosion there, you can guarantee that there's corrosion where you CAN'T see, but if there's no corrosion, that's not a guarantee of no corrosion anywhere, although it's a step in the right direction.

See:

For a previous discussion on this topic, and some images of what you should be able to see from the outside with all the fill removed.

Then you can start evaluating what might or might not be going on.

48 minutes ago, Coffman Automatics said:

First of all there is no corrosion. None.

Since there is no way to know whether there is corrosion or not in places you cannot see, your claim that there "is no corrosion" is unverifiable. Here's a picture of a wing attach fitting with severe corrosion:

I've drawn the red line where the aluminum disappears under either glass or filler on many VariEzes - in any case, the opposite side of this plate is in contact with the top of the spar cap and is not visible. In THIS case, one can see a tiny bit of corrosion peeking out from under the glass/filler, above the red line. However, had the corrosion started just a bit lower - maybe 1/4" below the red line, one would only see pristine Aluminum and would have no idea that very bad corrosion was there. Here's a side view of this piece, with extreme exfoliation corrosion visible:

As you can see, a substantial amount of the Aluminum is gone, cracked, or in the process of disappearing. Obviously any bonding strength to the underlying spar cap is essentially nil, and the strength of the screws holding the plate to the spar cap is also severely degraded.

Does your plane have this corrosion? Who knows? Without disassembling the fittings for examination, alodining/priming, and re-assembly, you'll never know. You seem to believe that an external visual inspection is adequate to determine the condition of the wing attach fittings - it is not, and RAF made very clear that it is not in its warning to VariEze owners.

1 hour ago, Coffman Automatics said:

There may be some delamination between the right lower spar cap and the aluminum.

Delaminations occur between layers of composite plies. What you're referring to is knows as a "disbond", where the bond between two dissimilar materials has lost it's adhesion. This is a common error in descriptions of failures.

And if you are correct that a disbond has occurred, this implies two things - first, that strength has been lost, and second, that a void is now extant into which moisture (rain, humidity - any water) can ingress and start a corrosion site.

Do not minimize the issues here, or think that just because you cannot see an obvious corrosion issue that there cannot be one.

2 hours ago, Kent Ashton said:

...the museum guys are probably right that it won't take much to get it flying again...  If this is the same fellow in the registration, he was probably a careful builder...I f this was a southern Cal. airplane all it's life, and hangared most of the time, you may not need to worry about the wing fittings...

Bolding mine.

Kent, you know I respect your knowledge about these airplanes, and I know you're interested in safety. But two "probably"s and a "may not", while not technically wrong, is nowhere near enough to hang the safety of an airplane on. Your recommendations for a thorough CI are obviously warranted, as are the rest of your recommendations. But they don't go nearly far enough.

Particularly with VEs and the wing fitting issue, it's critical to understand the provenance of the aircraft - where was it built? How was it stored? Where was it stored? How much did it fly? What protection was put on the metal parts? How much did it fly in rain/moisture? Was it ever tied down outside for any length of time? Who were the intermediate owners after the builder? How did THEY treat and store the aircraft?

While San Diego is in SoCal, it's also right on the Pacific Coast; is humid, wet and foggy. The first picture certainly gives the impression that at least for the last 3 years, it's been stored outside. This would have been a huge "move on to the next airplane" warning sign for me. And if I'm scaring the new owner, well, good.

"Probably" doesn't cut it...

4 hours ago, Justin Jones said:

For a questionable structure, you can always proof load to over 3.8g, up to 6g. If it fails below the intended load factor, then you just saved yourself a bailout, or worse!

Eh. This is a questionable (at best) recommendation. First of all, the VariEze was specified as a +5G airplane (limit load - top of the V/N diagram) at 1050 lb. No one knows what safety factor Burt used to design it, so we have no idea what the ultimate design load was. 2X is relatively standard in the industry, but many suppose that Burt used 3X to account for builder/MFG variability. So we can GUESS that the ultimate load (where failure would occur) would be somewhere between 10G and 15G. However, numerous folks have performed load tests on various parts of VE and LE aircraft, and they've failed anywhere from 3.5G to 14G (the VE _I_ tested failed the main wing attach fittings at around 7.5G - 8G. All of these, of course, assume intact and non-corroded wing attach fittings.

Of course, it's completely contraindicated to test any airplane to a load higher than the limit load, so your recommendation to test to 6G is a poor one - any load over the limit load, even if it does not cause failure, is allowed to cause damage. 5G (at 1050 lb.) would be the absolute maximum that anyone should test to in a static load test, unless the object is to determine the failure level.

And then what does one learn if one gets to 5G? Only that if one gets to 5G (limit load) the plane doesn't break. What happens at 5.1G? No idea. What's the safety factor over 5G? No idea. So the only reason to test to 5G is if one DOES intent to limit (per the mandatory requirements of RAF for VariEze's, due to the corrosion issue) the plane to 2.5G @ 1050 lb. THEN, assuming one got to the original 5G limit load level, one would have a safety factor of 2X when limiting to 2.5G.

4 hours ago, Justin Jones said:

...The distances are simply lever (moment) arms and can be used to determine what percentage of the weight is carried by Canard and Wing. (It is actually much more complicated for the exact solution, but this method may be able to get within a few percent. And it's better than test flying it to find out!).

Actually, this method does not get one to within a few percent, as the canard loading changes tremendously with not only CG position and GW, but also with IAS. The moment coefficient of the main wing is substantial, so as speed increases, the moment increases, and the load on the canard increases. So maximum canard loading would be at fwd CG, MGW, Vne at Sea Level. And can get to > 1/3 of the total lift. Canard load varies tremendously in different configurations.

4 hours ago, Justin Jones said:

f you just want to know the condition of the concealed metal wing attachments: xRay NDT is ridiculously effective for this sort of thing.

Now THIS may be a reasonable approach, if one was going to attempt the evaluate the structure by other than visual inspection (or static test). Back in the day, NDT was difficult and required a perfect sample of what was being x-rayed in order to be able to compare the subject to it, and then required a lot of interpretation. I'm not familiar with what's available today - it may very well be the case that a good analysis of the state of the wing attach fittings can be made without a perfect sample - only with the sample to be evaluated. If this is the case, then this type of evaluation could be extremely useful in understanding the state of the wing attach fittings.

Now, I will say that even with perfect wing attach fittings, the VE _I_ tested failed at the aforementioned 7.5 - 8G level, due to the attach fittings failing the attach screws (they tore out of the lower composite spar caps). This is barely a safety factor of 1.5X (not the usual 2X - 3X for composite structures).

9 hours ago, Kent Ashton said:

Just reading about a guy who lost his engine at 9500 feet and landed 100 feet short of a runway doing a fair amount of damage to his Cozy...

I concur with 95% of what you wrote, but there's this, with respect to your note and Cameron's followup regarding glide, in THIS particular case.

I have not seen the posting either of you are referencing - maybe it was on FB, because it doesn't seem to be on any of the mailing lists. But I have spoken directly to the pilot in this case and it's possible that I have information that might not have been publicly posted. I was not asked to keep this private.

The engine failure occurred at 9500 ft., and the distance to the airport to which he attempted to glide was (IIRC) 17 NM Interestingly, these are exactly the numbers that _I_ experienced during my propeller loss - we were at 9500 ft., gliding to an airport at 500 ft. elevation that was 17 NM distant. We arrived at the airport 1000 ft. above pattern altitude - IOW, 2K ft. above the airport, with (obviously) more than enough energy to make the field. So when the pilot told me that he landed 100 ft. short of the threshold, I was very surprised, because there's no way he shouldn't have made it as long as the wind was not excessive (which it wasn't).

After a bit of questioning, he told me that he, too, arrived at the airport very high - approximately the same 2K ft. AGL as I had and that the issue occurred because he misjudged the unpowered APPROACH. In this case, there was no issue with glide rings, L/D ratio estimations, or anything like that (although obviously all of those are important) - the issue was completely in the pattern approach positioning - over the airport at 2K ft. AGL, we should all be able to touch down on the runway.

I was not in the plane - I don't know how that type of error was made - but I will say that although I attempt all of my landings in my plane with the power pulled to idle at mid-field, downwind and try to touch down within 500 ft. of the threshold, one of every 10 landings or so require a blip or two of power, if I've misjudged the wind or my IAS a bit. But when I do NOT have the knowledge that my engine is working, I do not rely on the ability to blip the throttle - I shoot for a landing brake down touchdown at 1000 ft. from the threshold with the LB down, and retract it if necessary to improve the glide.

In any case, THIS particular accident was caused by a misjudged unpowered approach - NOT a distance glide issue.

8 hours ago, Coffman Automatics said:

... I want to learn all I can about these planes, and read all I can about them...

I'm not sure whether there was a question in there somewhere, but all I can say is that I would have recommended doing that prior to purchasing one.

Get a copy of the the plans and the POH, as well as copies of ALL the Canard Pusher newsletters and the Central States Newsletter (Now the COBA magazine). Get the RAF documentation of the wing attach fitting corrosion issue and the recommended solution (I don't use the word "fix", since they didn't specify a "fix"). Then read the parts of all of all those documents that apply to VariEzes 3 - 4 times. Then read them again. Everything is available online.

Then consider whether purchasing an unknown provenance VariEze was a reasonable thing to do and consider how you're going to ensure that it's a safe aircraft from the standpoint of wing attach fittings and engine. The engine is the easy part.

On 3/15/2024 at 7:50 AM, Coffman Automatics said:

... I plan to weigh it today. How much should it weigh? Looks to have at least 5 gallons of old fuel in it.

A review of the POH and the documentation for the plane would have been one of the first items on my Pre-Buy checklist prior to purchasing an aircraft. But to each their own, I suppose. Planes are weighed with no fuel aboard.

The VE POH sample W&B indicates an expected empty weight of 535 lb. No VE on the planet has ever weighed less than 600 lb., to my knowledge.  The lightest one I've ever heard of is Joe Person's plane, at 610 lb. (Day VFR, no starter). Now,  most of the VEs I inspect and work on weight between 680 lb. and 750 lb. A 750 lb. VE is a total pig. Anything over 700 lb. is pretty heavy. If you're near 650 lb., be VERY happy.

With a POH MGW of 1050 lb. (1110 lb. under certain conditions) you can see that anything over a 700 lb. VE isn't going to be able to carry much more than the pilot and full fuel.

Also be sure that you know whether you've got the long or short canard and which CG range that implies.

To the extent possible (which isn't much, for such a safety critical component), inspect the wing attach fittings for corrosion. Ensure you're familiar with the wing attach fitting corrosion issues that are well known and documented on Variezes. Have (and review) all the CP's, mandatory changes, and wing fitting corrosion warning documentation. Be aware of the concomitant "G" loading restrictions. mandated by RAF, as indicated in the wing fitting corrosion documentation.

31 minutes ago, Chris Fox said:

I'm hoping regular inspection and scheduled replacement of the conduit will work out less effort over the years than inspecting and lubricating elbows and pulleys. Plus it will leave less clutter on the firewall.

Belcranks and pulleys take approximately zero maintenance. 15 seconds at the CI to make sure they're still attached, and never lubricated, since they have sealed bearings. The fact that people have installed these tubing guides does not imply that they were fixing a problem.

32 minutes ago, Chris Fox said:

I'll look at keeping the ends firmly in place: the curved aluminium tube would be embedded in glass/foam, so shouldn't go anywhere, with a stainless tube stub exposed in the fire protected area behind the spar with a clamp at the end where the cable exits. Are rubber bellows a good idea at the exposed ends?

Never seen them and can't imagine why they would be required.

6 hours ago, Chris Fox said:

Would you think using a PTFE liner to the nylaflow would help? Also, would an aluminium/stainless steel tube outer to form the bend and set the direction at the outboard firewall mitigate the second issue?

Friction isn't the issue - wear is (or MIGHT be). If you can find something that doesn't get worn by SS cable (and in turn, doesn't wear the cable, which is just as bad), then that might be a good liner. Or you might be fine with a 20 year lifetime and a note in the logs that after 20 years, it's time to replace the cable and the guide. Don't know.

AL/SS tubing would still need to be fixed securely at both ends. One plane that I've worked on for the past 11 years has AL tubing as a guide, and every couple of years we've got to re-bend and secure it, as rudder throw continually gets lower and lower over time. Fix it well at both ends and this problem goes away.

1 hour ago, Chris Fox said:

I am hoping to route the nylaflow conduit in pretty much a straight line from the rudder pedals to just beyond the fuel tank blister, then a gentle curve through the fuselage/under the spar to then align with the rear face of the spar and aim towards the wing conduit. Extending the contour back from the blister to fair it in smoothly.

Has anyone got experience doing this, and does it seem sensible?

Folks have done similar installs with either nylaflow or AL tubing. It can work, but there are a couple of possible issues, one of which I've seen multiple times.

First, the SS cable will wear the tubing as it goes around the bend. How long with the tubing last? Hard to say. I suppose it depends on how much and how hard you use the rudders at speed. Nylaflow DOES wear - I've seen it worn through at the exit to the belhorn at the winglet, where it wears a groove in the nylaflow. But a totally enclosed tube is less prone to wear. AL will wear as well, but it might take 10 years or it might take 1000 years.

Secondly, and this is the issue I have seen, is that unless the tubing is extremely rigidly mounted where it passes through the firewall and where the SS cable exits to go to the wing, it will flex and you will lose rudder deflection motion. And the rigid mounts need to allow for tubing replacement in case of damage to either the cable or the tubing.

My $0.02.

6 hours ago, lscotese said:

I'm rebuilding some cracked baffles. The old baffles had inter cylinder baffles on the bottom (Cozy 3, high pressure side). I'm pretty sure this would just act as a wind break, reducing cooling. Any thoughts?

The intercylinder baffles top and bottom are there to force the air through the cooling fins, rather than being able to avoid them. Some folks have them, some don't - it's not obvious that they either help or hurt, as there are so many factors that affect cooling that it's difficult to tease out a single factor. I have them and my CHTs run fairly low. If they were there before, and your temperatures were decent, I'd leave them in.

1 hour ago, Kent Ashton said:

...you don't need aircraft or engine log books either.  All you'd need is Bill of Sale, renew the A.C. and get a condition inspection from an A&P or the builder with a repairman's certificate.

Well, sure - you don't NEED the aircraft/engine logs, but they're extremely useful in telling you about the care that the builder/owner may or may not have taken with the plane, and what's happened to it. Legally, they're meaningless after 1 year, but no logs is a yellow flag, if not a red one. The AC on this plane is valid - only the registration would have to be changed to the name of the new owner.

45 minutes ago, jackalak said:

 

What do you think about the price? Is is fair, a deal, or too high?

The barnstormers ad says that the logbooks have been found. Don't know if they mean build logs or aircraft/engine logs.

An engine that has sat for 16 years, if not pickled (and probably even if pickled) WILL need a full overhaul. It might run for a short time before the MOH, but it'll still need one for all the soft components that age even when not used.

Without seeing the plane in person, it is completely impossible to judge whether the price is right, low, or high. It could be a steal, or it could be too expensive if they gave it to you. You need a canard knowledgeable examiner for the PB - one who's seen a LOT of canards, not just the one they built or own. In the other thread, I recommended FFC - I'd talk to them first. A guy who works on jets (not even piston planes), however nice of a guy and amenable to inspecting an E-AB canard piston pusher, isn't going to have a clue what he's looking at.

5 hours ago, vh2q said:

Mark, the guy that built the plane, was an FAA engineer, DAR, commercial pilot, and a BSEE. If that counts for anything. Is it possible he built the plane a bit sturdier to achieve 2000 max gross? If so, what evidence would we look for? I am really not interested in a one person plane with 3 seats that might lose a wing if it hit an air pocket in a turn. I already own a plane with 750lb useful.

Kent gave some good feedback above. The builder's resume' means diddly squat. I've seen crap built by people that had amazing resume's, and excellent work by folks that were gas station attendants. Is it POSSIBLE that he did something that would increase the MGW and keep the structural safety factors per plans? Sure. it's POSSIBLE. But extremely unlikely, and unless you had documentation of it in the build records, you can't assume it.

As I previously said, folks DO fly these planes overweight (per the designer's POH) regularly, and THEY NEVER STRUCTURALLY FAIL. Let's go through some rough handwaving as to structural strength... The Long-EZ was a 5G plane at 1325 lb. MGW. The COZY III is essentially structurally identical to the Long-EZ, so at 1500 lb. (POH MGW) would be, purely by ratio, a 4.4G plane. But Nat was conservative and said 3.8G. Continuing the ratioing from the Long-EZ, at 2000 lb., the COZY III would be a 3.3G plane.

Now, Burt probably had at least a safety factor of 2X on the structure - some think it was closer to 3X, but we'll be conservative and use 2X, since that's usually what's used for composite structures. Which means that one would not expect a COZY III to fail until reaching 6.6G. Limiting it to the Normal Category 3.8G gives a safety factor of 1.7X - below 2X, but above the metal SF of 1.5X.

The issue here is that there's a lot of variability in build quality - a perfect build might withstand 3X the limit load of 3.8G, while a crappy build might be a LOT less. And there's no way to know without test data from Phase I whether the plane was ever tested to 3.8G when loaded to 2K lb.

Also, as stated this is a lot of handwaving, and while the wings/canard/main spar are almost certainly never going to fail unless you do something amazingly stupid in the plane (none ever have failed, in any VE, LE or COZY of any type - you're not going to lose a wing), overloading the landing gear on a VE/LE/COZY III is a recipe for required repairs down the road (could be next year, could be 20 years from now - also dependent upon original build quality and number of hard landings and pothole taxiing).

So I can't say it's fine to load a COZY III to 2K lb. You're not going to fail in the air. But you'll beat the crap out of the landing gear.

As Kent said, you need to examine the W&B very carefully to understand the maximum load for the front seat (Nat weighed about 140 lb. soaking wet) - many COZY III's are in the 340 - 360 lb. range so you'd only be able to take very small people with you. And even if you do only want to take small folks, you'd be operating at the forward end of the CG range, so would need longer runways, faster takeoff/landing speeds, and you'd cruise slower.

I'm not trying to discourage you from buying the plane - if you're going to fly solo 95% of the time and can put all the extra weight you're going to carry in the back seat, where it doesn't move CG forward, it could be fine. But you should understand all of the ramifications.

There's a reason these planes are called "COZY", not "ROOMY".

4 hours ago, vh2q said:

He's a generic A&P out of Denver, works for some outfit that services small jets. That's the only guy I could come up with. I don't think he knows anything about composites.

Then he will be useless for everything except POSSIBLY the engine examination, _IF_ he knows something about piston engines along with jets. He might be exactly the opposite of what you're looking for.

4 hours ago, vh2q said:

Empty 1069 useful 931 so max gross 2000 w O320. That's good news as I am 240.

The fact that someone wrote a number in a logbook does not make it a safe #. The COZY III was originally designed as a 1500 lb. MGW aircraft, with an allowance to go to 1600 lb. for takeoff. The V/N diagram in the POH shows that it's a 3.8G aircraft at that weight (I assume, 1500 lb., not 1600 lb.). The fact that someone SAYS that you can load it to 2000 lb. is utterly meaningless. A VERY ROUGH handwaving comparison will indicate that if the plane is a 3.8G plane at 1500 lb, then it would be a 2.8G plane at 2000 lb. While 2.8G gusts are not common, they're not unknown, either. And your Va (maneuvering speed) with a 2.8G limit drops precipitously as well, as does Vb (gust penetration speed).

If the plane weighs 1069 (which will be suspect until you do your own W&B) and you weigh 240, that's 1309 lb. Add 40 gallons of fuel (240 lb) and you're at 1549 lb - above standard MGW and barely below the max takeoff weight allowed by the POH of 1600 lb. Add some baggage and you're at 1600 lb., and you've got yourself a heavy single seater. Add another 200 lb. person and you're at 1800 lb.

Now, do folks fly COZY III's at 1600 - 1800 lb, fairly regularly? Yes. Are most canard overweight? Yes. Have any failed structurally due to this? No. Does that mean that one can be cavalier about ignoring POH weight restrictions without understanding all of the ramifications of flying overweight? No. Are there other folks that weigh 240 lb that fly 1100 lb. COZY III's fairly regularly, sometimes with a 2nd person and baggage? Yes.

But you need to understand what it all means and how all the parts play together.

Get someone familiar with canard composite construction to look at the plane. There are a zillion of them in the Denver area and if you were on the COBA mailing list, it would take all of about 5 minutes to find them. Keep trying FFC as well.

10 hours ago, vh2q said:

Can't raise these guys (Freeflight), neither by phone or email. Mike Cronk is going to check it out for me. Logbook says 900 lbs + useful which is a surprise.

Who is Mike Cronk, and what are his bona fides?

If a COZY III actually weighs 900 lb, that's a pretty light COZY III. I'm skeptical.

17 hours ago, jridge said:

Can try Burrall Sanders at Freeflight Composites.  He's just outside of Colorado Springs.

https://www.freeflightcomposites.com/

While FFC is still at Meadowlake airport (KFLY) it's been owned by Ryan Goodman for a number of years now - Burrall retired a while back.

11 hours ago, TParker said:

To make my extra 3 oz as effective as possible, I increased the moment arm and resized the cove in the canard to compensate; now they're in spec for balance and weight.

Be very careful with making the mass balance longer - you still need to ensure that you can get full book value of TE down elevator deflection, but if the MB hits the inner upper skin too early, you can't.

9 hours ago, Kent Ashton said:

...You likely don't know enough to form an educated opinion about them or the one you're looking at...

That is guaranteed, because the information presented about the plane is not even enough to start evaluating the condition of the plane as a whole, much less the engine, IP or wing attach fittings.

The default answer on VEs is "no - stay away" unless the provenance and history of the plane is completely understood.

5 hours ago, toast said:

 

The left aileron sticks when deflected up, it takes a small bit of force to dislodge it when it enters that state. There seems to be a scratching noise. It doesn't quite sound like metal on metal, and it seems to be coming from the inboard side of the aileron. I flew the plane probably about 3 weeks ago and this issue wasn't present. The plane is tied down outside and it did rain a bit.

My hope is just that some dirt or grime is interfering with the hinges, and it just needs to be cleaned and lubricated. Has this happened to anyone else? Is there anything I should try before taking things apart?

 

This is what I wrote in the Pre-Buy examination residual report for the plane, back on March 27th, 2023:

"Aileron Clearances - both are slightly tight to fuselage - clearance as for the elevator if the ailerons are ever removed"

Apparently, the changing temperature/humidity caused some growth in dimensions (or there is some crap caught) which is causing the ailerons to rub. Now's the time to remove the ailerons and increase the clearance, which should be 0.062 - 0.1". Dirt/grime should not be able to cause control system binding. Fix it before the next flight.

9 hours ago, A Bruce Hughes said:

... I need to understand the FAA requirements on numbers...

Does that violate any FAA regulation ?

See 14 CFR Parts 45.21 - 45.33.

All the registration marking requirements are there.

Of course, about 1/2 the planes I examine don't meet the FAR requirements, and other than for international flight, I've never heard of anyone getting their wrist slapped because of it, but those are the rules.

4 hours ago, zolotiyeruki said:

... If the plans empty weight is supposed to be ~730 lbs, and installing a larger engine adds 150 lbs (gotta have a battery to go with that starter!), where do you typically see the extra 220 lbs (to get to 1100) coming from?

No Long-EZ has ever weighed 730 lb., except maybe N79RA with an O-200, if it had one.

98% of LEs have either O-235s or O-320s. An O-320 weighs about 50 lb. more than an O-235.

Additional weight comes from many disparate areas, in no particular order:

• Too much fill (and too wet fill), due either to poor underlying contour or poor understanding of the weight of excess fill
• Adding layups/glass plies (and the epoxy to wet them out) where not needed for "extra strength"
• Poor squeegeeing/stippling technique and overly wet layups
• Systems way over and above the minimal systems installed in the original Long-EZs
• Heavy starters, alternators, additional batteries
• Full stack IFR instrument panels
• Probably other areas I can't recall at the moment

It adds up. The lowest weight O-320 LE I think I ever saw was about 850 lb. - that was probably the lowest weight LE with any engine. The heaviest O-360 LE was/is about 1100 lb.

I took 30 lb. out of an O-235 LE recently by removing a 40 year old Century Autopilot system and the vacuum system and replacing them with a G5/G507 and two GSA28 servos.

8 hours ago, Drew said:

Yeah, i have no problem working out the WB etc. And the weight only is next to useless, but was hoping someone had actual number that i could play with. Ideally of an EZ around the same weight.

I've seen empty CGs of Long-EZs anywhere from 109" to 112". The book value of the pilot's seat arm is 59". Fuel at 104", and rear seat at 103". CG range is 97" - 103". Assume that the 880 lb. is BS, particularly if it's got an O-320 - I'd go with somewhere between 900 lb and 1100 lb to be conservative, until the plane is actually weighed.

So with those #'s you can play with what happens in various configurations and cases. But you still won't know dick about THIS plane - only what it MIGHT be, if...

1 hour ago, Drew said:

 

Being 6'4", 250#, I thought I'd look at  the CG / W&B calc's using the POH from these forums's, as I can see this being a problem.

Probably not, but certainly worth examining for any particular Long-EZ. They're ALL different.

1 hour ago, Drew said:

Now, the POH has the Empty as 730#, but we all know that almost impossible.

There may be one or two LEs on the planet that weigh less than 800 lb., but I'd bet a lot of $$$ you haven't found one.

1 hour ago, Drew said:

Can someone share the Load calculations please, so I have a bit of a guide?

The methodology for W&B on LEs is in the POH - it's just like every other aircraft. There's no magic.

1 hour ago, Drew said:

The owner says the EW is 880#, but dont know where the CG is to do a proper calc.

An empty weight of 880 lb., even for an O-235 LE, wouldn't be that lousy. But without more information, the number is meaningless. Unless you have an empty CG location, as well as verification of all the fuselage stations for the main wing/strake intersection, main gear axles, nose gear axle, canard, and front seat (which is very dependent upon WHO is sitting in it), whether the empty weight is 750, 950, or 1150 lb. doesn't tell you squat.

Get a copy of the latest W&B that was done and then have someone that REALLY knows canard review it to see if it can be trusted - most can't and are out of date at best.

1 hour ago, toast said:

What I plan to do is run a second wire from the main battery to a small hot bus which could then power the ignition and cabin lights....

I'm not sure why Cabin Lights are at the same level of importance as "engine running" - if you have a flashllight (or your phone) in the cockpit with you, the Cabin Lights are superfluous.

In any case, as I've done about 14.3 bazillion times before, I will recommend that anyone architecting an electrical system for an airplane get Bob Nuckolls' book "The AeroElectric Connection". It has many prefab architectures from which one can choose to fit one's needs, and a fully electrically dependent engine is represented in a few of them. There are a number of his architectures that have an "Always Hot" bus, with redundancy in the case of system component failures.

Get it. Follow Bob's recommendations.