Marc Zeitlin

Are you talking about a horizontal stabilizer or a vertical stabilizer? Vertical surfaces forward of the CG (as any vertical surface attached to the canard will be) are destabilizing in yaw, and would require substantially larger tail vertical surfaces to offset. The vertical (or at least partially vertical) surfaces attached to the wing tips are not far aft of the CG, and will have only a very weak stabilizing effect, particularly due to their small size and cant angle. While interesting looking, this configuration, even with a vertical tail at the aft end of the fuselage, would have poor directional stability at best, and be directionally unstable at worst.

Eureka uses a CNC hotwire machine - it's still hotwiring. Steve does not machine the foam. Accurate, but hotwire, nonetheless. I'm at a loss to understand the belief that fabricating ailerons is rocket science - building a set of new ailerons, if required, should take a long weekend - maybe 3 - 4 days, just because there are about 4 serial cure cycles. Two skins, end ribs, and some reinforcing. Use 7/16" steel rod or tubing to put lead weight inside, and ensure good balance. It's just NOT that hard.

The balance pic you show is from page 7 of the aileron addendum. Look at page 5 - there are two templates that show WL's and external skins. You can use these to create an external level "jig" for determining the WL. In any case, if you balance the VE ailerons so that the top skin is closer to level than the bottom skin, you're good. And that's after ALL paint.

Sand all the paint and excess fill off and repaint it so that it balances correctly. Put the minimum amount of fill, primer and paint on, particularly on the bottom which never sees UV exposure - NEVER paint control surfaces over old paint without removing it. Only then, if the elevator is not in balance, add extra weight, and then only outboard.

So if you need to install something on the centerline of the airplane underneath, then you're going to need to get rid of the NACA scoop entirely and go to armpit scoops under the strakes. Otherwise, you'll melt your engine, as Kent indicated.

Extremely bad idea, and almost guaranteed to screw up any cooling air into the engine.

There are many factors that can lead to high temps (you don't say what your CHT's or oil temps actually ARE, which would be useful for people trying to understand what you think a problem might be). What makes you think that the air intake is the cause of the high temperatures of whatever type you're seeing?

What do you think is wrong with what you have?

Yep. I think folks do it to keep away the tire-kickers, but I agree it's counterproductive. Last I spoke to Don/Brendan, they were asking $90K. I told them they'd be lucky to get $60K, which obviously is not something owners want to hear. The other thing to note from that ad is that it's ancient - they discuss the plane needing an "annual" (no such thing - it's a Condition Inspection, but old habits die hard) in 11/2017.

That's Don Ponciroli and Brendan Woolrich's plane. Almost never flies, way overpriced, needs work and mods. Could be a good project plane if priced reasonably. I've told Don they're asking way too much - maybe they've dropped the price in the intervening years... I'd be extremely concerned about the engine (corrosion), since it lives right on the coast and even though hangared, is almost never used and not pickled. While I don't do this in my Pre-Buy's (I don't take apart other folks' aircraft), in this case I'd want to pull a jug (LOTS OF WORK) and take a look at the cams and rest of the interior, as well as just bore-scoping the cylinders. And while this is not the latest version of what I use, it'll give you an idea (for a generic canard aircraft) of what I look for in a CI or PB: http://cozybuilders.org/docs/Canard_CI-PB_Checklist.pdf

No. It's not for sale yet - I'm just projecting that it may be sometime this year. Don't know for sure. Dave will have a more comprehensive list of LE's for sale, but you'd still need a good Pre-Buy examination. I keep a list of all COZY's for sale (that I know or hear of). Which plane is this? It's doubtful that I'm not familiar with it... See: https://www.burnsideaerospace.com/pre-buy-examination-information and page 32 of: http://cozybuilders.org/Oshkosh_Presentations/2015_Zeitlin-Soup_To_Nuts.pdf for information on what to look for. But the most important thing is to have someone that knows their ass from a hot rock look at the plane, and just because someone has built and flown one or two of these planes doesn't necessarily mean that they are in that category. I've seen a lot of crap that supposedly knowledgable builders had let slide or just missed. See: http://cozybuilders.org/mail_list/ for COZY mailing list information.

Get in touch with Tim Sullivan, who bases his Long-EZ at Placerville. Great guy. I know of a very nice Long-EZ that might be for sale - the owner hasn't flown it in over a year. Get in touch with David Orr who maintains a list of all Long-EZ's (and other canards) for sale. I maintain a list of COZY's for sale. Join the canard-aviators mailing list, which has over 1500 members and is pretty active. If you're interested in COZY's, join the COZY mailing list, which has over 800 members, 100 flyers, and 300 builders.

So let's review this. A claimed empty weight of 535 lb. is extremely suspect. The lightest VE I know of (granted with an O-200, but that's not going to make a 90 lb. difference) is about 610 - 620 lb. Most are in the high 600's / low 700's. So when someone says that their airplane is in the 0.001th percentile of weight, there should be a LOT of skepticism. 635 lb. I could believe, if the build was really high quality. But I'd be a LOT of $$$ against 535 lb. Not having logs means that anything anyone says about the plane is meaningless - there's no record to back it up. You don't eve know what you're trying to verify at that point. For a VE owner to not be aware of the wing spar joggle issue and the wing spar attach corrosion issue means that he's not paying any attention to the notifications put out by RAF. That's not a good sign. Did he at least know that the plane is restricted to +2.5G / -1.5G? There is certainly nothing wrong with kicking the tires and looking at the plane, but unless YOU are a canard expert and know exactly what to look for, how to do a Pre-Buy examination and what to measure/ask, I would HIGHLY recommend that if you're serious about the plane, you get a canard expert to perform a Pre-Buy examination for you. Knowing who did the last 5 - 10 Condition Inspections and what maintenance was done on it would be extremely useful. Is the plane in CI now? Can it be demo flown? Does the owner have dual jacks so you can check the landing gear attach points? A million other questions... See: https://www.burnsideaerospace.com/pre-buy-examination-information for what a PB exam actually entails. Given the known corrosion and spar cap issues surrounding VE's, I STRONGLY recommend to my customers that they consider Long-EZ's instead. My $0.02.

If you missed my warnings on the COZY and canard-aviators mailing list, be VERY careful with anything that David Hanson has worked on from a structural or aerodynamic standpoint. Caveat Emptor.

Just out of curiosity, why would X-Plane have changed the flight modeling engine in such a way as to break a previously working model? What did they do?

Curt is 120% correct here. We were trying to use this model for some simulation wrt the development of a new avionics package, and it was a total POS - didn't act like a real LE in any way, shape or form. We wasted a lot of flying hours finding this out... Gaming model at best - don't even think about using it for training. The new link is here: https://www.vskylabs.com/vsl-rutan-longez if anyone wants to see it, for no good reason.

Who did the pre-buy examination, and how much does it weigh as-is? Are you going to switch from cuffs to vortilons?

a) Yes. Flies fine with WAY worse - just might leak a little air. As long as the hinges are intact and not loose, there's no issue. b) Not going to work. And these canopies changes shape substantially with temperature changes - when it's cold, they "banana" up, due to the differential CTE's of the fiberglass and acrylic.

If the wings are on, just outboard of the wing attach fittings (on a VE) is fine - just put the support (with some foam padding) under the spar. If the wings are off, you can put the support under the main spar as long as there's still room to work on the wheels.

In the specification document and in the barnstormers ad somewhere. The MGW is set to 1350 lb, which is 240 lb. OVER POH value, and it's STILL a single seater with full fuel at that point (or two tiny people, if you believe that it's OK to fly VE's at 1350 lb).

Holy crap - that would scare the bejeezus out of me - I would assume that you're almost guaranteed to damage the strake skins, which are in no way (on any of these planes) meant to support the weight of the aircraft. Also, since the LE of the strake is fwd of the CG of the aircraft, I don't see how this could possibly lift the main gear off the ground - I must be misunderstanding your description. Here's what _I_ do when I either want to change tires or (during a CI or Pre-Buy) examine the gear attach fitting: Get a sawhorse of appropriate height with a 2x4 laid flat on the top (fasten it securely) and then at least 2" of blue foam on top of that to spread the load Lift the wing Put the sawhorse under the wing spar, just outboard of the wing attach fittings on a VE or between the outboard bolt holes on other canards (leave space to get the wheel off between the axle and the sawhorse) Put the wing down Do the same on the other side If you have electric nose-lift, you can put the two sawhorses under the wings when the nose is down, extend the nose gear, and the plane will jack itself up off the ground On a VE, I can lift the wing and put the sawhorse in place by myself - with a heavier plane, I need a helper if there's no electric nose gear. Of course, if you have a hydraulic wing jack, you can jack the plane up UNDER THE SPAR further outboard, and then put the sawhorse in place. You could probably do the same with a jack under the gear leg, as Kent shows, and then put the sawhorse under the wing. If you jack under the gear leg, be absolutely sure not to put any force on the brake calipers.

No doubt - having done exactly that (strip and refinish) to my plane, I feel the pain. Doesn't make it right, though...

I will give the owner props for being completely up-front about the condition of this plane. Many owners don't do that, and many don't know what the issues are with their planes. So good on Jeff for being an honest guy. That said, the single biggest issue I see with this plane (other than that it's been worked on by Dave Hanson, which is always a red flag although not necessarily disqualifying depending upon what he did to it other than the obvious signature mediocre paint job) is that it weighs 867 lb. Even with an O-235, it's a single seater, and that only if you're willing to fly 200 lb. over POH MGW. This is the heaviest VE I've ever heard of - the dataplate said that it weighed 720 lb. when it was certificated in 1982, so somehow it's gained almost 150 lb. over the years.

Sorry - I missed this posting. Obviously OBE (but I'd be very interested to know why the deal fell through), but yes - I can recommend someone. For anyone in the Socal area, I do Pre-Buys (take a look at the link in my signature to Burnside Aerospace), and I also have traveled around the country to do PB's for folks that want me to do them. Burrall Sanders is in Colorado and is good as well - he knows canards.

You are correct. Micro ONLY on foam, not GtG.