Marc Zeitlin

At any given speed, the canard (and main wing, for that matter) need to produce a given amount of lift, determined by the CG/AC relative positions, and the pitching moments of each. The maximum lift that can be produced is determined by the Max Cl of the airfoil, which occurs at a fixed AOA. If you want to go slower (that's the point of the flaps, right?) you MUST be able to generate a higher Cl. Lowering the incidence angle of the canard only forces you to have a larger elevator deflection to achieve the necessary Cl at a particular IAS - it doesn't change the AOA at which the canard airfoil will stall one whit. Since it's the canard that determines the stall of the aircraft as a whole, you haven't changed anything in the right direction. In fact, because adding flaps ADDS to the nose-down pitching moment, and requires MORE lift from the canard, you'll run out of elevator sooner, and in fact stall the canard at a HIGHER IAS than you otherwise would. The fact that the main wing has a larger theoretical maximum Cl is meaningless, because the canard won't let you get there using your methodology. For the canard to go more slowly, you either need to add area, move the canard forward, or add high lift devices (flaps, slats, etc.). Do a force/moment balance, please, while looking at the lift equation - you'll see what needs to happen.

Yes - that and stall resistance. The fact that in theory, conventional aircraft and 3-surface aircraft are more efficient doesn't mean that in the particular use-model of aircraft that I'm looking for (which for me is a high-speed cross country cruiser) that a more efficient conventional or 3-surface aircraft actually exists. It does not. Would you? Why would you want to get about 1/2 of the fuel efficiency of a COZY MKIV? Your basic premise is flawed. The other 4-seat aircraft (Cirrus, Cessna 400, Lancair IV/P, etc.) get about 10-12 NMPG. I get anywhere from 17 - 25 NMPG - better than my Subaru Outback, at about 2.5 times the speed. That's absurd on the face of it. Picking an aircraft because of it's looks is brain damaged. If you like the looks, that's great, but the functionality has to be there. VE's get 35 - 60 NMPG, LE's get 25-40 NMPG, and COZY's 15-25 NMPG. Looks are one thing, but efficiency is a large part of the appeal. Find other 2 seaters or 4-seaters that get that type of efficiency. First of all, no one claims they're "unstallable", what's claimed is that they're stall resistant, which they are. And claiming that stall resistance in an aircraft is unimportant because you don't TRY to stall your airplane regularly shows a lack of understanding of flying fundamentals. I have had the stall resistant nature of my airplane save my ass at least once, when I had a bit of ice on the canard and stalled it on downwind-base turn at 800 ft. AGL. No issue - go around, let the ice melt for 5 minutes, back in business. Conventional aircraft - very exciting at the best, assuming I could recover from the stall / incipient spin in 800 ft. There is no question that the stall resistance is a safety feature of the aircraft. It's hardly the only important characteristic of the type, but don't minimize it - it IS important. Speak for yourself, will you please? Especially when you don't know what you're talking about. I got my plane because it was the only four seater that I could afford that could do what I wanted vis-a-vis speed, efficiency, carrying capacity, and safety. While I like the looks, it was item #4 or 5 on the importance scale. None. Exactly zero. Even in kit form - don't restrict it to plans.

Actually, the main show stopper to having bigger canard aircraft is that they're not as efficient as conventional or 3-surface aircraft. I know that canard aficionado's don't like to hear that, but it's a fact. While canard aircraft do have some advantages (stall resistance), there's nothing that a canard aircraft can do that a non-canard can't do if the engineering is applied to it, and although all else being equal, the canard is more efficient, all else is never equal, and in reality the 3-surface aircraft is the most efficient, and the conventional layout is not less efficient than the canard. Induced drag is a maximum when at low speeds and high AOA's. It's at a minimum at high speeds. Adding wing area to land more slowly does not add to induced drag at high speeds - it actually lowers the AOA required, lowers the Lift Coefficient, and increases profile drag (more skin friction due to more skin).

You need to study some aero texts, with respect to CG/Aerodynamic center relationships, as well as pitching moments. Also, you don't increase "Lift" by adding flaps, you increase maximum lift coefficients. It doesn't do any good to increase the lift on the main wing if you don't do the same on the canard, since the canard MUST stall first. You can't go slower (which is the whole purpose of putting the flaps on) if the canard is stalled. It doesn't do any good to LOWER the incidence angle of the canard, because it doesn't change the max Cl of the canard, which is what determines the stall speed. Just to change the aerodynamic center - it wouldn't have any effect (or at least not much of one) on the stall onset. Don't know why you'd think it would... Yeah, which is why I'm always amazed when non-aircraft designers think that they can just change things willy-nilly. There's a lot going on here, in many different regimes. The first thing is to understand the balance of forces on the aircraft when in a static situation - once you do that, you can understand what the issues are with lift augmentation devices on canard aircraft.

See what the Starship did. Flaps extend, and the sweep of the canard decreased, as the sweep was coupled to the flaps. In fact, the canard would have a slight forward sweep with full deflection of the flaps. Whoa - backwards. See above. When the flaps extend, the pitching moment increases a lot - you then need MORE lift from the canard, not less. Reducing the lift of the canard as the flaps extend is guaranteed to drop the nose and require more elevator, which you will soon run out of as your speed decreases. The Starship moved the canard center of lift forward by decreasing the sweep in order to counteract the added pitching moment from the flaps on the main wing. You could also add flaps to the canard, but with full width elevators, where would you put them? The canard could slide forward/backward, but the sweep change was apparently deemed simpler, mechanically. You also have to be careful, as the canard center of lift (and therefore the aircraft center of lift) moves forward, by whatever means, that you don't move the center of lift forward of the aircraft CG, at which point the aircraft would become unstable in pitch. See above.

You're correct. According to AOPA, all grants had expired, and Chicago could do what they wanted (within some strictures, none of which said they had to keep the airport open). NLV is NOT in the same boat as Meigs - there are far more restrictions on closing the airport.

Distinction without a difference. It's what you say will happen. I say not. Want to bet, or do you not have faith in your prediction? And I would say that after what happened to Meigs, the supporters of airports (and the FAA) will be far more militant in ensuring that any airport owner follow the rules. The AOPA has been very good about keeping track of these types of things post-Meigs.

Put some $$$ where that mouth is? Say, $1000? Give you 2:1 odds, too, if you like. Hell - make it 5:1 - I'm feeling generous, especially since I'll never have to pay. If you understood the rules regarding airport closures when an airport has taken federal $$$, you'd never make such a silly claim. A cursory search shows that the last time NLV airport received federal $$$ was around 2001 at the very earliest, indicating that if they never took another dime from the feds, they'd have to stay open until 2021. Not only that, but it's no closer to stuff around it than McCarran is. Having flown into both, and flown past the tower and the strip going into McCarran, if the argument was made that NLV is too close to stuff, then McCarran's got to go, too. Not going to happen. Unless Bill Daley moves to LV, and no-one notices, the NLV airport isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Back to the original topic - having written letters to the 2 largest LV newspapers, the head of the Clark County Aviation Association, Randy Warner and the NLV Airport manager, AOPA and EAA and having the CCAA President, David Lerner use chunks of my letter in a letter to Mr. Warner, not to mention EAA president Tom P. using info from my letter in his letter to Mr. Warner (without asking permission, as Mr. Lerner did) I may write another letter to Mr. Warner inquiring as to the imminent banning of Piper twin engine aircraft. Although sarcasm and irony rarely have an effect on appointed officials...

Bingo. And Bingo again, to get more than 10 characters so that the forum software will accept the posting.

You're talking about the "Mobius. Nope. That's not FBW - more like an autonomous and/or remote autopilot. That just had a computer running servos driving something akin to the the standard Berkut control system. The standard control system with mechanical linkages is still there, and is usable by the human pilot when the plane is flown manned (and the computers either turned off or disabled). FBW means that there's no mechanical/hydraulic linkage between the human powered controls and the primary flight control surfaces - only electrical signals to a servo. It makes no sense to talk about UAV's or autonomous vehicles as being FBW, as if there were another choice - since there's no human in the airplane, there can be only electrical signals (wires or wireless) between the human on the ground or the computer on the ground or in the plane to the servo mechanism.

No clue. Sometimes adding/subtracting material helps, sometimes it hurts. Without a bunch of crash tests, like they do with cars, or some heavy duty non-linear FEA (which I neither have access to nor time for) I don't think there's any way to intuit what would happen in either case. Maybe you're taking away the piece of sidewall that will keep the IP from smacking you in the forehead, or maybe you're taking away the one piece of sidewall that will collapse inward and crush your leg. No idea.

Yep. That's what billions of $$ and many years of development will get you. Yes, they're hiding out with they guys with the 200 mph carburetors. No publicity at OSH or any other fly-in, no web postings, no nothing - just flying their safe aircraft privately, without telling anyone else what they're doing :-). True. But there's a reason "tried and true" is usually the best solution. Not always - of course - or else there'd be no progress, but sometimes, new stuff ISN'T better, depending upon the situation. As I said, for the heavy iron, FBW is great. For small GA, it's the wrong thing. All remote control aircraft are FBW, by definition - the controls that the pilot moves are linked electromechanically with the flying surfaces. They also have no people in them, and have poor failure rates. Waiting with bated breath...

If they have, they won't be replying here, because they'd be dead. Do you have any idea how much more reliable a mechanical linkage is over jury rigged (which is what you'd get in a homebuilt - witness the difficulty that BMA has in getting their equipment to be reliable, and all they're doing is MEASURING stuff - they're not CONTROLLING anything, least of all primary control surfaces) electro-mechanical or electro-hydraulic linkages? There's a reason that the only aircraft that use multiple redundant computer controlled fly-by-wire systems which are tested for hundreds of thousands if not millions of hours are the military ones and the big commercial jets. Unless you need a boosted control system, which you don't in small GA aircraft, there's no advantage to the FBW. If the only thing controlling the pitch, roll, and yaw of my aircraft were the knobs on my autopilot, which is essentially what you're proposing, I wouldn't get anywhere near the thing. Not to mention that you'd have an extremely hard time making a redundant, reliable, FBW system lighter than a couple of aluminum tubes and some SS cable.

While not usually an advocate of structural modifications, I had created a FEM of the Long-EZ fuselage structure (very rough - no details) to analyze the issue of removable fuselage tops and removable instrument panels. Both of these had a very strong effect on the structural rigidity of the fuselage in torsion. I modified this model to address the concern here of the windows (and the armrest glassing, rather than being removable, which some have done [including myself, on my COZY MKIV]) and here's what I found: 1) The armrest removal made the Long-EZ fuselage about 5% - 15% less stiff in torsional twisting than the fixed armrests. There are a lot of assumptions built into those numbers, none of which are particularly accurate, but it does show that the armrests DO add some measurable amount of stiffness. Critical? Hard to say. There are numerous aircraft flying with removable armrests, and none fall out of the sky, but I'd be the first person to point out that that's hardly proof of a damn thing. 2) The window cutout made approximately a 1.5% difference in torsional stiffness, all else being equal - to me, this is in the noise - I wouldn't hesitate to put the windows in without structural concern if I wanted them.

You seem to hold the notion that you can trailer the VE to the airport, attach the wings in a short time period, go fly, and then take the wings off in a short time period and trailer it home. This is NOT what will happen, or what the airplane was designed for. I do not know of anyone with a VE that uses it in this fashion. Putting the wings on and off is non-trivial - not really a one person job, and can take an hour, easily. The wing attach hardware was not designed to be used with this frequency - most VE drivers don't remove the wings even for their Condition Inspection, so the attach hardware isn't used even once/year. I think you're making a large mistake in believing that you will save tiedown/hangar costs by having a VE. The LE fits into the same category - if you HAVE to have easily foldable/removable wings to justify owning a plane, neither of these planes is for you. Look at the Glastar or Europa, for well performing 2-seaters with folding/removable wings.

Trio makes an excellent product. The principals in the company fly canards, know how to make their products work with these planes, and provide excellent support. If I didn't already have a Navaid autopilot that still works, I'd replace it with a Trio in a second. Sometimes I stare at it and wish it would fail... But I'm too cheap not to wait for it to do so :-). I have NEVER heard a bad word about the company or the product from owners (or anyone else, for that matter).

Yeah, that's because the surface area of the strake extension is very small, it's right next to the fuselage, and it looks just like the Long-EZ strakes, which is where the idea came from, and the LE obviously works, on a very similar aircraft. What you're proposing is a substantial aerodynamic change, not a minimal one.

The SQ2000's strakes seem a bit smaller than the standard COZY MKIV strakes. Not a huge difference. That's a LOT smaller - you'd probably lose 1/2 of your fuel capacity. Remembering that you need VFR/IFR reserves, you'd probably lose 2/3 of your usable trip fuel. You're making the assumption that you can make aerodynamic modifications to an airplane based on what you "keep hearing". The strakes most definitely contribute to the lift generation of the aircraft, especially at high AOA's (low speed) - at cruise, they might not be generating much lift, but when slow, they most certainly do. Reducing the lifting surface area substantially is not a path I would contemplate traveling. Yeah, by about 5-10 lb. Reducing fiberglass usage in lightly loaded sections of the airplane is not an optimum weight reduction scheme. The strake provides most of the twist resistance to moments from the wing - the spar is very small in comparison. While your proposed strake would have more than enough structural stiffness, I don't like it for all the other previously mentioned reasons. 1) Won't get that with 2/3 usable fuel reduction2) PITA 3) No advantage from the front seat - larger advantage from the rear, but the rear seats are rarely occupied, and the view can be enhanced by lowering the rear windows a couple of inches and adding baggage compartment windows in the bottoms of the strakes. 4) Maybe a knot or two, max. Bad idea, IMO.

Because most crashes aren't fatal, so you ask the pilot what happened. It's pretty simple. The only accidents that you can't conclusively say what happened are the fatal ones with little evidence after the fact. Even crashes such as Glenn Saunders': http://www.cozybuilders.org/Glenn_Saunders/index.html are understood. If a structural failure occurs (wing spar breaks, canard departs [such as with Steve Drybread in the Berkut], etc.) it's almost always obvious from the remains of the aircraft. It's better than the alternative, which would end up with NO experimental aircraft being built in the Am-Built category. I'll take freedom over image every time. Neither - they listen to the local news, which generally knows nothing. There have been a few experimentals that have been modified to be certificated. None have been commercially successful. This will not be a fruitful path. See above. When I say that the NTSB doesn't do a thorough investigation, it's crashes such as Jim Marshall's COZY crash last month in TX that will remain mostly unexplained, even with the eyewitness information. It was possibly systems failure, possibly pilot error, but definitely NOT structural failure. A structural failure is almost always obvious, with a plane fluttering out of the sky with a piece missing, or becoming a lawn dart. Agreed. Feel free to attempt to get designers to build static test articles and test to failure. Hardly ever happens - just too time and cost intensive. I agree that it SHOULD happen, but it doesn't, and mostly won't. Systems, though. Structural failures, even of experimental aircraft, are extremely rare, and are a tiny proportion of the total number of accidents, fatal or otherwise. You're concentrating on the wrong bar in the histogram. Agreed. But FAA oversight is not the answer, because they suck at it, and don't know what they're looking at. EAA tech advisors are the way to go. I stated a fact. If people don't like the fact that our aircraft aren't as safe as the GA aircraft population as a whole, then the answer is to build safer aircraft by using the available advisors and methodologies available, not by asking the FAA to be a nanny (which they're not capable of being, even if it were advisable). Structural over-design (at least in the canard composite community) and marginal systems design. No contradiction. Yes. Many folks are determined not to take advice from those who know their ass from a hole in the ground, and go their own way no matter what they're told. It's a fairly human condition. Usually, in the case of experimentals, if you ask around at the home airport of the person who has an accident, many of their acquaintances will say "it was just a matter of time - we tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen". Short of tying the guy to the boiler in the basement and not letting him fly, what is there to be done? And I'm telling you that it's a nice thought, but won't happen. That's pretty funny. I'm the principal engineer in charge of Rocket Motor development at Scaled Composites. We'll be testing the crap out of the next generation of RM's. But it's expensive, difficult and long-term. Asking guys that are designing stuff in their basement to lay out 10's of thousands of bucks to test things is a good idea, and nice in theory, but it just won't happen on a large scale, and since they test only one instance anyway, there's no statistical significance to the results, especially for systems. Since the COZY is a plans-built, there's clearly no cost increase to the builders. Yeah, that's what would happen :-). Thank you for that insight into using the internet, which I've been doing since 1987. In fact, I don't post to the subject matters that I don't want to talk about. I thought by indicating that there was information that you could gather from reliable sources that had been through them thoroughly in the past, you might learn something. Sometimes fresh perspective is useful, for sure. But understanding the background of the subject matter at hand is even more useful. Thicken your skin a bit - no-one's asked anyone to go anywhere. I agree that nobody should be "blown-off" just because they're not yet builders/flyers. But if you'd been around for 13.5 years or more, you'd know that EVERY question, modification, issue, or suggestion that anyone has made here (or anywhere) has been made before, discussed before, dissected before, and analyzed before. Some are good, but most are not. Once one has been building/LISTENING for a period of time, they come to understand that. It gets extremely tiresome for folks that HAVE been around for a long time to answer the questions of folks that want others to do their research for them. That's a part of the "blow-off" phenomena that you've been mildly experiencing. No, but it's a good indicator. Certainly not a guarantee, though.

And there most probably never will be - the NTSB does not do thorough investigations of experimentall aircraft crashes, so unless something obvious jumps out and grabs them by the throat, they'll attribute it to something nebulous. See: http://www.cozybuilders.org/N2992_Accident_Eval/index.html for an investigation done by canard folks, and compare it to the NTSB version. Oh my god, no. By whom would they be "qualified"? In who's hands would you like to put the freedom to build your own aircraft, no matter how crappy? This is the LAST thing we want. The FAA used to inspect projects 1/2 way through the build. Since they weren't qualified to do so, they stopped, since it had no safety effect. The only inspection from the FAA/DAR is at completion. The EAA, on the other hand, has Technical Advisors (of which I am one) that will, for free, inspect your project as many times as you like during the build and provide advice. There are NO experimental aircraft that could be certificated under Part 23 of the FAR's, no matter how many have been built, and I include ALL Rutan Derivative Canard Composites, including my COZY MKIV, in that statement. Not one. The certification process (and the design process necessary to pass it) is long and onerous, and contributes to the cost differential that you mention. There's a reason they cost more. Is your last name Trump, or Buffett? I've got $75K in my plane - it would take me 2 years and $25K to build an airframe to destroy - why, exactly, would I want to do this? No properly built VE/LE/COZY has every had a structural failure - see my OSH fora for more details: http://www.cozybuilders.org/Oshkosh_Presentations/ Weight? Put our foot down? What the heck does that mean? System failures are the largest component of non-pilot caused accidents, not structural failures. Fuel and engine systems, in particular. Pass what? Many homebuilt aircraft have marginal systems safety levels. That's a fact. You haven't seen any canards here - all you've done is talk to builders and flyers electronically. Having seen hundreds of homebuilt aircraft at fly-ins all over the country, I can tell you that whatever test you think these aircraft would "pass", many wouldn't. Not for the most part. It's expensive and difficult to do full structural testing - far easier to overdesign and live with the weight increase. As I stated, there has NEVER been a structural failure of a correctly built Rutan Derivative canard composite aircraft. System failures - yes - left and right - but not structural. Balanceable? What does that mean? Correct. Another "Oh god, no". What a great way to kill the experimental amateur built aircraft category altogether. There is no need, desire, or advantage to such a program - turning over any more oversight to the FAA would be a disaster of epic proportions for the Exp. Am-Built category. You should join the COZY mailing list and read through the archives of the mailing list, as well as through the archives of this forum. There is not one subject that you've brought up since you joined that has not been addressed multiple times on the mailing list (and here).

Folks: For those of you not on the COZY mailing list or the canard-aviators mailing list, here's a copy of a posting there. I've written letters to the following: Editor - Las Vegas Sun letters@lasvegassun.com Editor - Las Vegas Review Journal letters@reviewjournal.com Amanda Hernandez - Channel 8 (KLAS) Reporter ahernandez@klastv.com David Lerner - President of the Clark County Aviation Association http://www.ccaanv.org/ccaa-officers.php dmlpilot@mac.com Cecil Johnson - Assistant Director of General Aviation, NLV Airport http://www.vgt.aero/06-ContactUs.asp cecilj@mccarran.com And last but not least, Randy Walker - Director of Aviation http://www.mccarran.com/04_02_Contact.asp Director@mccarran.com regarding Mr. Walker's comments following last week's tragic Velocity accident at North Las Vegas airport. Although I had to trim the letter to the Sun to get close to their 250 work limit, here's what I sent to each of these folks - the more letters they get in this light, positive yet firm - the more likely they are to have some effect. Dear XXX: I am writing in response to Director of Clark County Aviation Randy Walker's comments regarding Experimental Aircraft usage of North Las Vegas Airport after last week's tragic fatal accident. My name is Marc J. Zeitlin, and I am a private pilot with almost 1000 hours of flight time in both certificated and experimental aircraft. I am a Mechanical Engineer, and am currently principal engineer for Rocket Motor Development at Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA. I have flown into both McCarran and North Las Vegas Airport numerous times in my experimental aircraft, and have found them both to be friendly, helpful, and safe, both in the air and on the ground. While I understand Mr. Walker's desire to increase the safety level at NLV Airport (and all pilots share his desire to increase safety levels), his suggestion that experimental aircraft be banned from urban airports is an inappropriate response to this tragedy. A short review of accident data publicly available at the NTSB's aviation accident database: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp at North Las Vegas Airport from 1982 through the present shows 37 accidents in the 26 year period. Out of those 37 accidents, eight of them were fatal, with a total of 18 fatalities. Experimental aircraft accounted for exactly three out of the 37 accidents - 8% of the total. This accident, involving the experimental Velocity aircraft, was the first fatal accident involving experimental aircraft at NLV airport since 1982 - that's 12.5% of the fatal accidents, and 17% of the fatalities. Cessna aircraft of all types accounted for nineteen of the accidents, or 51%, and Beech aircraft accounted for two of the fatal accidents (25%), and seven of the 18 fatalities, or 39%. It would seem that if Mr. Walker has a desire to ban aircraft that are the most dangerous and cause the most fatalities, banning Cessna and Beech aircraft would provide the best opportunity. Banning experimental aircraft, however fresh this accident is in Mr. Walker's mind, would provide little if any increase in safety level either for flyers or the residents near NLV Airport.

As Lynn points out, since you don't know where the "Zero Lift Line" is for either the GU or Roncz canard, you (or anyone) have no clue what the relative angle of incidence of the two airfoils is - all you have is the "Level Line". Since the shape of the airfoils is different, you can't make the claim that one incidence angle is higher than the other. You don't even know if they're different. Folks seem to be concentrating on the stall behavior of the aircraft with canard incidence angle, and there certainly is some effect there - there have been numerous discussions on the COZY mailing list in the past (an archive search will turn them up) regarding canard incidence angle effects on stall behavior. Depending on other characteristics of the airplane, lowering the canard incidence angle MAY make the plane more susceptible to deeps stalls, although a small incidence angle change will probably not have much effect in this area. With respect to rotation on takeoff, lowering the incidence angle will require more elevator deflection to be able to rotate at the same IAS, but that creates more drag, so the takeoff roll might be a bit longer. If you attempt to rotate at speeds close to the stall speed, you might not be able to because the extra deflection of the elevator will cause the canard to stall (on the ground, at the ground incidence angle) at a higher speed that it otherwise would, so you'd have to go faster to get above that stall speed. However, the more important effect, in my mind, besides these two, is the fact that the canard needs to be at a higher incidence angle than the main wings in order for the aircraft to have positive pitch stability. Lowering the canard incidence angle can easily make the aircraft unstable in pitch, and that's a very bad thing. The front wing on EVERY aircraft, canard or conventional, needs to be at a higher AOA than the rear wing. Lowering the canard incidence angle might make this relationship incorrect, so you'd lose some or all of the pitch stability of the aircraft. Numerous folks have mounted their canards at too low an angle, found that their planes were not pitch stable, and had to increase the canard incidence in order to correct the problem. There's a reason that the canard incidence angle was set where it is - much testing was done to determine the correct angle. Why do you think you'd want to change it?

I hate to pile on to what is obviously a bad situation from the Jeffco adherence issue, but you've got another, possibly as bad or worse situation, judging from your photo #3 (the one that's almost all white (grey) ). It looks to me as though the flox that you piled onto the top of the strake ribs to form the attachment to the strake top is barely touching the strake top in many places. It looks as though you used the plans methodology, rather than the more robust "T-hat" method, and that either not enough flox was used, or that not enough weight/pressure was applied to the strake top when it was installed. Personally, I'd be at least as worried about the strake top attachment (from a structural and leak standpoint) as I would be about the Jeffco. If it's not adhered on the ribs, how well is it adhered to the spar? Good luck with both of these issues.

Steve modified the fuselage because he wanted it to look better. There is no aerodynamic advantage to Steve's fuselage over the stock LE or COZY fuselage. So I repeat the question: What's not aerodynamic about the Long-EZ fuselage? Or did you just mean that you wanted the LE fuselage to look nicer? Sure, but they're different aircraft. Jack did not change the aerodynamics of the winglet at all - I was very clear in my recommendations to him to do NOTHING except remove the outboard 12" of the wing, the bottom 12" of the winglet, and then blend the two airfoils together with a continuous shape. We did NOT change the angle of incidence (not the AOA - that's set by the direction of the free stream) of the winglets at all. Nor does anyone. As long as you're open to suggestions...

What's not aerodynamic about the Long-EZ fuselage? How will you deal with the reduced dihedral effect of lowering the wing, as well as the different wake effect of the canard on the main wing at varying AOA's? People scrape the wingtips on occasion with the wing in it's current configuration - it will only get worse with a lower wing. While I obviously believe that a blended wing/winglet is a useful thing, having helped Jack implement his blended winglets, I don't understand the rest of your comments. The winglets are ALREADY producing a lift vector in the forward direction - this is how Whitcomb winglets reduce overall drag. You may want to do some reading on the concept of elliptical lift distribution - you want an elliptical lift distribution on the whole aircraft, as viewed from the far field - you don't necessarily want an elliptical lift distribution on each lifting surface. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why a canard aircraft can almost never be as efficient as a standard configuration aircraft - it's almost impossible to get a whole aircraft elliptical lift distribution. No contradiction there, huh? Why welcome comments if you're already convinced of everything that you're doing?