Marc Zeitlin

You know what? I had written a long screed in response to Joe P.'s response to me, but after going back and reading the license agreement again, I retract my statements. You're absolutely correct. ACS controls the plans, and if they don't want to transfer them, that's their right, and you're just SOL. Can't copy them, can't give them away, can't sell them, can't do squat without ACS's permission, and if you don't like that, don't buy them. Now, IF someone violates the agreement, it's only the original owner that ACS can sue, since the second owner never signed anything. But you're absolutely correct - I stand corrected.

Wow - some judgmental folks here, with damn little info to go on. Do you guys know the crosswind capability of an aircraft of that size and capability? It's approximately 33 kt., with capability for 38 kt. gusts. Clearly, the guy was in a crab (perfectly acceptable) to compensate for some crosswind, and then got hit by a gust as he straightened out in the lower flare. They did a hell of a job in a plane with a 4 second delay in engine response to keep straight and level and execute the go-round. The last thing that should happen to these guys, unless you somehow have some inside info about the crosswind and gusts at that airport at that specific time, is getting punched, especially by folks with no experience flying A320's. Sheesh.

If you bag it, and you need that much glass in those orientations, then that might be true. For wet, non-bagged layups, there's way too many interstices and you get a very heavy layup. I think you mean 2 UNI. The lower skins are 2 UNI and the top skins are 3 UNI (at least the COZY is - I believe the LE is the same, having looked at the LE plans a couple of weeks ago). The third layer of UNI on the top is spanwise, and used to prevent buckling, since the top skin is in compression, spanwise. A couple might have experimented with it, and Jeff Russell used it for a while when building AeroCad/Aerocanard wings. Heavy, difficult to orient and drape, IIRC. He might have, if he had been aware of it, but there's no place where it's appropriate on a LE/COZY. I believe so, in the context in which you are asking. No. They're heavier, thicker and stronger, and can be oriented as required, rather than within +/- 5-10 degrees of 45. Whatever it looks like, a Velocity is NOT a LE or COZY. While similar, they're not the same. Velocity is clearly not selling anything unsafe - they've had no structural failures. But they all also weigh substantially more than all but the two or three heaviest COZY's.

If you re-registered with Nat, got permission before selling, and (sometimes) paid a $50 "transfer" fee, Nat was OK with it. The lawful owner is whomever has them. Remember what the purpose of the license agreement was - the point was to ensure that one set of plans wouldn't be used by multiple builders, and cheat Nat out of the purchase price. His leverage in ensuring that this would happen was that he wouldn't provide SUPPORT to any non-approved builder who hadn't signed a license agreement with him. Since ACS provides absolutely no support, the license agreement has no value to any builder, primary OR secondary. What ACS recognizes or doesn't is meaningless from the builder's standpoint. Hardly. There are no copyright implications whatsoever, as long as you don't copy and redistribute the plans. You have every right to sell them, and the next person has every right to use them to build a plane (or make paper hats, or burn in their fireplace). If ACS has any contractual issues with that, they can take it up with the FIRST builder, to whom they sold the plans, because THEY'RE the ones that signed the agreement. But there's NO copyright violation going on with plans sales, anymore than there is when you sell someone a book you've read. ACS can only threaten to withhold support from non-licensed builders - big whoop - they don't provide support anyway, and they're sure not going to NOT sell you stuff with which to build a plane, since that's where they get the bulk of their income anyway - not from plans sales, assuming they had any clue whatsoever that you weren't a licensed builder. And they never will, if not because there's no legal standing to do so, then at least because it would be against their financial interests.

If you want to do it right, the answer is yes. Except for SS and some Titanium flavors, there should be something between the carbon and the metal.

We just beat this subject to death on the canard-aviators mailing list - you must have missed that discussion. Use the last-a-foam.

Not motorcycle engines - 4 cyl. Suzuki's from a compact car. See: http://www.infortel.com/cozy/

Because it's expensive and time consuming? Ask Dick VanGrunsven and Burt Rutan why they don't design to Part 23 (unless they want to, in some areas). None of the experimentals - that was the point. Hey - you want to copy a certificated aircraft, shrink it, and make the shrunken version part 23 compliant - have at it. It's your time and $$$. All I was pointing out was that if there are any experimental amateur built aircraft that are part 23 compliant, they're extremely few and far between, and none of the Rutan derivative canard composite experimental amateur built aircraft fit into that exclusive category. Also certificated - not experimental. I guarantee you that the first Starship experimental prototype, built by Scaled, was not part 23 compliant.

FAR 23.67 defines the requirements for OEI climb gradient. Generally, it's 1.5% at 5K ft. pressure altitude, although there are many other conditions as well. That is correct. Good luck with that. Very few homebuilts would come close to meeting the part 23 requirements - that's why there's a lot of redesign required when folks like Lancair decide to certificate their aircraft. Mil Spec, huh? Yeah... Certainly NONE of the canard composite aircraft are anywhere near all of the part 23 reqs. IVO has long since refused to sell props to folks that intend to put them on Lycoming 4-cylinder aircraft engines. Can't take the torque pulses.

That's very different than saying that they're not interested in the experimental market. Should Vans start marketing these engines, that would be 1/2 of the experimental amateur built market :-). At any rate, if ACS decided to market them for the COZY, then they'd be available to us. It's hardly obviously a lost cause.

See: http://www.centurion-engines.com/ Click on the 2.0 engine, then "Kitplanes and Experimentals".

That's about right. There's always some variability. My empty CG is at about 112 in. - 110 is somewhat forward, but not completely out of line. You're a bit nose heavy - do you have the battery in the front, rather than on the spar? Umm, you're missing the point of the nose ballast. If you put someone heavy in the front passenger seat, you should take OUT the ballast in the nose, not put MORE ballast in the back. I can put 460 lb. in the front seat before reaching the forward CG limit, with NO nose ballast. With your empty CG being a bit further forward, I'd expect something like 420 - 440 lb. for you. Basically, if I fly solo at 150 lb., I have 52 lb. of ballast in the nose to be AT the rear CG limit. If I have someone that weighs more than 105 lb. in the front seat with me, I remove ALL the ballast, and then the CG will also be at the rear limit. As the person gets heavier, the CG will move forward. With me at 150 lb, I could (if they were dense enough to actually fit in the plane) put a 310 lb. person in the co-pilot's seat before reaching the front CG limit. Not going to happen. A generally incorrect assumption. No. If I have 52 lb. of ballast in the nose, the plane will sit level with no problem, and I can fuel it when level. However, with no ballast, I lower the nose 1/4 - 1/3 of the way down after stopping, and BEFORE getting out. This ensures that the plane won't go anywhere after both front-seaters get out of the plane. You can also fill the tanks about 95% of the way, even with the nose on the ground, so with it 1/4 - 1/3 down, I can still get the tanks almost completely full - well within a gallon/side. Unless you're flying immediately, you really don't want the tanks completely full anyway - it'll warm up, expand, and blow some out the vents. You want to leave a little air space.

And removed it. He's now flying a Lycoming (and has been for a number of years). My understanding is that Greg never could get the 20B to run reliably. Don't know why - I'm sure others who have more contact with Greg can comment on this. George's engine seemed to run pretty well, but he did have issues with his home-made PSRU. Not familiar with that plane. Where's it based out of? Haven't heard of that one, either. Numerous issues with the engine set up and the aircraft itself. See the write-up on my web pages - I did the accident investigation with a number of other folks. There's also Steve Brooks' COZY MKIV with a turbo 13B in South Carolina. IIRC, Steve has about 20-30 hours on the plane in 4 years. There's also a widened and stretched COZY MKIV with a 20B in it that was last seen in PA about three years ago, and the A&P working on it said that he wouldn't fly it for all the $$$ in the world. After looking over the plane and engine installation for an hour or so, I agreed with him. Don't know the owner's name, but he bought it from the builder (Brice Daunay) and got hosed. No doubt. With all due respect, you're really one of two canards with a rotary engine that's been reasonably successful (proven). Here's the list: Removed Rotary from canard for something else: Gowan Richter Aliev Hull Crashed Rotary canard (engine related): Conner Flying Rotary canard (very few hours): Giezen Perry Brooks Other (unknown owner) Flying Rotary canard (few hours): Slade Flying Rotary canard (many hours): Graham Mick So, out of 12 known rotary canards that have flown, four have removed the engine for something else. One crashed and destroyed the plane. Three are in the very early stages of flying - the success of these is unknown (and Steve rarely flies, so I don't know whether that one will ever be proven one way or the other). One has flown out of the Phase I period (legally), but has had many engine related issues. With 80 hours on his plane in approximately 4 years, there's no way that I would consider John Slade's plane a "proven success". That leaves George Graham's E-Racer and Perry Mick's Long-EZ as the two successful Rotary installations in canards. Again, with all due respect to Perry, who's made his installation work, a 16% success rate is not great. Hell, an 80% success rate is not great. Even if ALL of the low time folks become successful, that will be a 50% success rate. I admire and applaud those who attempt to make these engines work on these aircraft - I refrained from installing an auto conversion because I know how much work it is, even as much as I would have liked a Subaru. But for anyone to think that their odds of success are high when installing one of these - well, you only have to look at the facts. For whatever reasons, these engines do NOT lead to high time, successful aircraft, on a regular basis. I put 120 hours/year on my plane. Even Perry doesn't come close to that, and that's NOT a lot of hours. Nick Ugolini (admittedly 3 sigma off to the right) puts 300-400 hours on his Lyc. powered LE. As I've said many time before, I WISH that I was wrong about these (and other) auto conversions - I wish like hell that there was something newer, simpler, easier to deal with, and cheaper (not to mention MORE reliable and higher power) to put in these planes. But there isn't, and I'm not. Hopefully, in the future, there will be, and I will be :-).

Folks: Last year (2007, for those keeping track), along with the COZY forum at OSH, we held a generic "canard" forum as well. Both fora were well attended and well liked (as far as I could tell). Assuming that the EAA permits it (which I have no reason to doubt), I will plan on organizing both fora again this year. With that in mind, here's a recap of we presented last year: COZY FORUM: * COZY MKIV Aircraft - Soup To Nuts - Marc Zeitlin * Stretched O-540 COZY MKIV RG - Chris Essylstyn CANARD FORUM: * Stagger-EZ Introduction - Steve Wright * CSA Introduction - Terry Schubert * Blended Winglets on an E-Racer - Marc Zeitlin * Propeller Loss / Desert Center - Marc Zeitlin COZY DINNER: * Belleville Washer Testing/Propeller Retention - Marc Zeitlin With that in mind, I'd like to get feedback on a number of areas for each forum: COZY FORUM: 1) What COZY related topics / presentations / issues / should we discuss? CANARD FORUM: 2) What general canard related topics should we discuss? So far, I have a few provisional presentations for these two fora for this year: a) Yair Gil may talk about his planned Israel - OSH flight (and it will be very fresh in his mind :-) ) in his new COZY MKIV. b) Mark Beduhn may talk about vortex generator installation on his COZY MKIV c) Bill Allen (planned for last year but couldn't make it) may talk about his cross-atlantic flight of a few years ago in his Long-EZ, and also about his Wilkch Diesel installation. Does anyone have a presentation they'd like to make at either forum? (10 - 15 minutes or so). Speak up, and help out! Something on your plane, your build, flights you've made, modifications, etc. I will give some form of the standard COZY spiel, I suppose, although it's getting pretty long in the tooth; most folks that show up are NOT walk-ins, and I can understand why Nat was getting tired of giving it after 15 years or so :-). Many of you have seen it a number of times - you've got to want to see something new, too. So, any and all ideas are welcome - we had over 100 folks at each forum last year, I believe. I'd like to keep these as vibrant, useful fora for the whole canard community, so speak up, and I'll see what I can put together. I'm happy to help with the creation of the presentations - don't be worried about not being a "Powerpoint" guru, or not being a presentation expert - people WANT to hear what you have to say. Responses to the COZY and/or canard email lists, please, or directly via email to me. Thanks!

Generally, when bolting through sheet metal, the "hole to edge" distance should be more than twice the hole diameter, meaning that there should be at least "1.5 * hole diameter" from the edge of the sheet to the edge of the hole, or "2 * hole diameter" from the center of the hole to the edge of the sheet. In this case, it doesn't quite look like you've got that, but on the other hand, this isn't really "sheet metal", and the bolt hole in the aluminum is unlikely to be the weak point in the system.

Shoot me an email. See below. Don't know if I'll reply this week - email access is spotty, but I'll get back to you before the weekend.

Consider the source of that claim. It's complete BS.

Wow. Why anyone in their right mind would spend $90 - $130 for something that you can put together in 10 minutes for $5 is beyond my comprehension. My $5 COM antenna lets me talk to ATC from 100 miles out or more, depending on altitude, and my transponder antenna is the same - ATC ALWAYS picks up the transmission, assuming they've got me on radar - how much better could these be? There's "better", and there's "more than good enough". I'm sure they work fine, but a total waste of money, IMO.

In the COZY, the COM antennae go in the winglets (to be vertical). Depending upon how your winglets are set up, you might be able to install them on the medial side flange of the rudder attach recess. You need at least 40.6" - each LEG is 20.3", with no more than 1/2" between - see: http://www.cozybuilders.org/ref_info/RST_82704.pdf for info. Although the three metal hinges and a few other metal parts are close by, they're relatively small, so hopefully will not have a large effect. You could run the antenna wire across to the hinge side, then down to the wing level and forward to the light wire conduit. The copper tape could be applied to the inner flange and covered with one BID.

For nine months out of the year, the temperature in Tehachapi will be between 60F and 90F, with humidity levels in the 30% range. It will rain once or twice in that time period, and the sky will have clouds in it maybe 30% of the time, but it will be VFR weather for all but one day of the nine months. For the other three months, it will be between 40F and 60F 80% of the time, and VFR weather 70% - 80% of the time. In Mojave, add 10F - 15F to the temps, and increase the VFR percentage to over 95% - maybe 10 days/year aren't VFR for the whole day. There are mountains, deserts, snow, heat, cold, national parks, cities, and whatever else one might want within a couple hour drive or flight. This is a wonderful place for folks that like to fly.

It's been raining and 30 - 35 degrees for the past two weeks :-). We had 4 inches of snow in our backyard in Tehachapi last weekend (for a day and a half). But mostly, you need a hangar so that you don't get blown away by the 40 kt. winds, or so that your airplane doesn't get sandblasted away by the 40 kt. winds blowing the sand/dust from the surrounding desert. Or so that your plane doesn't get dented by the 50 lb. tumbleweeds going by at 40 kts. Or so that YOU don't get dented by the 50 lb. tumbleweeds going by at 40 kts. Yeah, the sun beats up paint pretty good in the summer :-). Would that suntan lotion had any effect :-).

That's a step in the same direction, but two orders of magnitude different. One of the engineers at Scaled is building a QB RV-8. I visit the project every once in a while, and there's still a LOT of work to do, and he WILL know the plane inside and out completely, to the same extent that I know the COZY. That, I don't begrudge. He'll have 1500 - 2000 hours into the build, and that's more than enough in my eyes to qualify for Am-Built status, even with the QB kit. It's when you have a "QB kit", a factory or secondary "assistance center", and the builder ends up building 5% of the project because they used the loopholes of the "majority" rule to claim that the builder did more than 1/2 of the "operations" to build the plane. That's a load of BS, and if the FAA would tell 3 or 4 of those folks "sorry, don't know what you've got there, but it's not an experimental amateur built aircraft - good luck with that", this nonsense would stop fast. Boy, I wish I was a FSDO inspector sometimes...

Hence my comment in reply #6.

And if the FAA catches wind of that and investigates, he could easily lose the am-built certification, and have a $1.5M device that he's not allowed to use (in the am-built category, anyway). The EAA/FAA are having substantive discussions about cracking down on garbage like this (which pisses the crap out of me, having built two aircraft essentially from scratch, which is the INTENT of the am-built rule set).

It is, but there have been substantial modifications made to the aircraft since it's original certification. It's POSSIBLE (although not likely) that they were done by an individual and were enough to get it switched. I wouldn't bet on it, though - if I had to guess (and it's JUST a guess), it's still Exp. R&D, with the restrictions that implies.