Marc Zeitlin

Sorry, I should have said "Mu". That's what I meant. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative) for an explanation, especially with respect to the Buddha nature of dogs and the definition in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Unask the question.

Sigh. As I've written about a number of times, I did my Instrument Training in an accelerated week four years ago in my COZY MKIV. Never turned the AP on once the whole week. Flew about 10 hours of actual IMC during the training (in 40F rain on the good days), and got a bit of ice once - maybe 1/16" on the canard and wing leading edge. The instructor never had to touch the stick once during that whole time, and I never lost control of the aircraft. I'm NOT god's gift to pilots, by any stretch of the imagination. These are high performance planes - they are NOT stable in roll, and are sensitive in pitch. But that's not substantially different than many other high performance planes that are used for IFR flying all the time - Mooney's and Bonanza's come to mind. All that said, I would NOT fly my COZY (or a LE) in IFR single pilot without an Auto-Pilot - the workload is just too high, and the opportunity to lose control while distracted by COMM or who knows what is just too high. But again, that's not substantially different than the recommendation I'd make for ANY single pilot IFR flight. Only if you're a fool. Assuming that it's technically possible to do so (which it isn't - there isn't enough heat generated on the airplane to heat that much surface area and melt that much ice), there are still the issues brought up by others of the winglets and prop, not to mention the canopy, pitot/static ports, etc. Yes. No. Go review the phase change heat required to melt ice, look at the surface area of the aircraft, and realize that a flying surface can accrete an inch of ice/minute, if not more, in some icing conditions. Go figure out how much heat you'd need to melt even the surface of that ice. Then go review the latest in anti-ice equipment, including vibration, fluids, and boots.

In theory, and unmeasurable, in our applications.

Just thought that I'd point out that this same plane is now for sale in Trade-A-Plane, six months later, and the ASKING price is now $60K. When it gets down to $20K, maybe I'll be interested.

My $1M term policy costs $110/mo. When a bunch of people who know something about a subject that you admit that you don't know much about tell you that "A" is better than "B" (and "B" is what you picked BEFORE asking whether you it's a good idea) and then, after being told that yes, in fact, you did make a mistake, you persist in insisting that "B" is actually better for YOU, I have to wonder what the intent of the original question was, since you obviously already knew the answer and weren't really interested in gathering information. I considered it for about 4.3 milliseconds, before remembering that it's crap.

It is inconceivable to me that I would ask for a Heineken, as I don't like them. A Guinness, maybe, but the only reference that I've made to Guinness was in a thread from last November, didn't involve you, and wasn't a bet. Aha - here it is - the other forum: http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?p=50035&highlight=Guinness#post50035 And no, I can't make it a Killians, and at the rate you're building, there's no question in my mind that I'll be winning this bet :-).

Refresh my memory - is this the $100/yr I bet back on 12/12/2005 ( http://www.canardzone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9811 ), or was there some other bet? If it was this one, then I'm thinking that someone owes me $200 so far, soon to be $300 :-).

That's trivial in a Long-EZ, distance wise. You'll need 170 kts. GS to make the flight in 4 hours. Easy. See above. An O-320 LE will burn around 7-8 gal/hour to get the 170 kts when up high (above 8K ft.), and with a 52 gallon capacity, you've got over 6 hours of duration with IFR reserves. Hardly. You must be flying spam cans with crappy climb rates, and never go up high. You'll lose a few kts TAS by going above 8K ft., but even 15K - 17K is easily doable in an O-320 LE - many folks fly that high if the winds are favorable, or to get over some weather. Hell, some O-320 LE's regularly fly in the low 20's, when IFR. Don't know why they want to - it's COLD up there, but if you can get a 40 kt. tailwind, I guess it's worth it :-). You won't get 170 kts. TAS in an O-235 LE - figure on 140 - 150 kts max. Get an O-320 and be happy with the climb rates and speeds, and feel free to throttle back to 6 gph if you've got a tailwind. Then you'll definitely need an O-320 LE. See above. If you actually want to fly the plane regularly, and not just experiment with the engine installation for years before it works reliably, the Lycoming is the only way to go. For the speeds (and fuel flows) you want, the O-320 is the only choice. You do NOT need a turbo for your flight requirements. Put in an auto conversion if you want to tinker - not fly regularly and reliably. There is exactly ONE reliably flying rotary conversion Long-EZ; only a couple of reliably flying rotary canards (or even Subaru canards) and many more rotaries that have been removed for Lycomings. This site is filled with discussions of engine choices - search around.

You're not getting scammed, but in almost every case, a Term Life policy will be a better deal monetarily than a Whole Life policy. My father, a CPA, would almost always make that recommendation for people who need life insurance. I have a 15 year, $1M term life policy that covers me as a pilot, and I'm about 10 years into it. Given my income, my wife's income, and my son's educational needs, I got a policy that would cover me until I was able to retire (after which, by definition, I didn't need insurance anymore since if I could support the two of us on my retirement income, my wife could certainly support herself on it) and my son was out of school. I will probably be cancelling the policy the day I write the last check to Syracuse University. This policy cost me about 2x what it would have if I wasn't a pilot. If you get your certificate AFTER buying the policy, you can probably get it for the lower price (depending upon the terms of the policy, but most do not restrict what you're allowed to do in the future - mine even covers suicide if it occurs more than 2 years after the policy purchase). See: http://www.piclife.com/ With respect to borrowing against the whole life policy, you can almost always get more interest on the payments into it that build the principal from other sources. I think you made a mistake, and should get a term life policy instead. Keep your life insurance and your investments separate.

44cz was Nat's prototype MKIV, now owned by Ken Murphy (he of the full rear seat gas tank and 175 gallon total capacity). 44CZ is 2 inches narrower than the plans version. 14CZ is the first plans conformal MKIV, and is owned by a group in Colorado Springs.

So, aside from making the canopy a lot heavier than stock, making it more susceptible to warping due to temperature changes like the Long-EZ canopies are, making it harder to build and making the inside glass layups visible so that it's uglier and exposed to UV, what's the purpose of doing this? Am I missing something obvious? If the object is to give the rear seaters more visibility, the problem in the back isn't being able to look up - it's downward visibility through the strakes, and this does nothing to address that issue.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape for a bit more objective view of the etymology of the term.

Which of the many types of tiedown systems do you have on your plane? What broke? The tiedown point? The rope? The knot in the rope untied?

The NASA report of testing on a VE with which I'm familiar is NASA Technical Paper 2382 from March, 1985 - "Wind Tunnel Investigation of a Full Scale Canard Configured General Aviation Airplane" by "Long P. Yip". While numerous parameters (canard airfoil, canard incidence, canard position, winglets, leading edge droop, etc.) were adjusted and stability of the aircraft was measured, canard tip shape wasn't one of them (from a cursory examination of the TP).

Not necessarily, in a general sense - it just may be so tiny an effect on these canards that it's not measurable in either direction.

Don't know about the VE, but there are COZY's/LE's flying with downswept tips, and they do not exhibit behavior any different than chopped off tips or upswept tips (or any other weird tips that folks have tried). I'd be interested in a pointer to that NASA report.

Aesthetics. Nope.

I'm an A&P. Contact me via email and we can talk about the Condition Inspection for your VE.

What makes you think the COZY dinner is on Thursday? The Beduhn's BBQ is on Thursday, but the usual night for the COZY dinner is Friday (although we haven't heard from the Luecks yet about this year).

Can we change the title of this thread to reflect the fact that it's a Velocity, not a COZY?

How would adding surface (lifting) area in the front of the plane move the center of lift (Aerodynamic Center) aft? In fact, adding surface (lifting) area forward moves the aerodynamic center FORWARD, and because it's not a well defined "wing", does so non-linearly - there's more of an effect at high AOA's than at low AOA's (which is a bad thing). This was one of the main reasons that Nat decided to cut the canard shorter to avoid deep stall susceptibility in the wider COZY MKIV - the wider fuselage forward of the A/C was causing the aircraft to be able to reach an AOA at which the main wing could stall.

But that's not what you SHOULD be trying to get. See below. Yes, and either putting more weight in the nose, or extending the nose so that a lesser weight at a longer moment arm can counteract the weight in the rear is something that is commonly done, as neither has a major affect on aerodynamics. The aircraft (Berkut, Esselstyn O-540 COZY MKIV with Velocity Retracts) that have been stretched 12" BETWEEN the wing and canard have different CG ranges than aircraft that are not stretched. between the aerodynamic surfaces. Which is destabilizing. Hence the need for the understanding of the relationship of the aircraft Aerodynamic Center to the CG range. If you move the canard forward, you change the aerodynamic center of the AIRCRAFT - the main wing is not the only lifting surface. Keeping the CG in the same position relative to the MAIN WING is meaningless - it needs to be in the correct position with respect to the aerodynamic center of the AIRCRAFT. So, unless you understand the relationship of aerodynamic center (of the AIRCRAFT, NOT just the main wing) to the CG, and unless you know what moving the canard forward by an arbitrary amount will DO to the Aerodynamic center of the aircraft, you have no idea where the CG SHOULD be, and therefore have no idea whether moving some "stuff" forward to attempt to counteract the extra weight in the back is a good idea or not. That's what I'm driving at, and what you're not picking up on. This is non-trivial, and even moreso with canard aircraft than with conventional ones.

OK - a good start. Think about it - you're suggesting moving the AC forward while you move the CG backward. I'll ask again: What do you know about the relationship of Aerodynamic Center(s) to Centers of Gravity? Knowing the definition of each isn't sufficient. Go back and review what the relationship should be, and then think about what the movement of the canard forward will do to that relationship, and then think about why the relationship needs to be what it does.

What do you know about the relationship of Aerodynamic Center(s) to Centers of Gravity, and how to determine the Aerodynamic Center of an aircraft?

Folks: I have received preliminary information from the EAA on the scheduling of the OSH 2008 Canard and COZY fora. The Canard Forum will be on Thursday, 7/31/2008 at 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM, and the COZY forum will be on Friday, 8/1/2008 at 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM. I'll have the locations as the time gets closer, but obviously they'll both be in the forum tents. As I mentioned in a previous email, a number of volunteer presenters have had to drop out, but we've still got more than enough information to share in the 75 minutes alloted for each forum. When the official schedules and locations are published, I'll list the presentations in each forum. Hopefully, folks like Terry Schubert, Mark Beduhn and Daryl/Kim Lueck can give us some info on the CSA weenie roast, the COZY/canard BBQ at Mark's hangar, and the COZY dinner - thanks to all who organize these things! Responses/Q&A on the COZY/canard-aviators mailing lists, please.