Marc Zeitlin

See: http://www.odysseybatteries.com/battery/pc680.htm Starts my O-360 no problem - weighs 7 lb. less than the B&C and/or Concorde. Been discussed many times on the C-A list :-).

There is no such thing as a "51% rule" (that's just a colloquialism that's extremely misleading), and there is no restriction on whom, of multiple builders on a project, can get the repairman's certificate, no matter how much or little they did on the project. No rules need to be bent for a purchaser of this project to finish it up and get the RC. Not only that, but since the aircraft is built from plans, as long as it wasn't built by a professional for pay, it will fit under the "majority" rule for being certificated as an experimental amateur-built. See the innumerable previous conversations here, on the canardaviation forum, and on the COZY and canard-aviators mailing lists for full discussions of these issues.

See: http://www.cozybuilders.org/docs/ I've got a CI checklist I use for the COZY. I'm sure it's 95% transferable to a LE.

Aha - that was not at all obvious to me. Yee hah! :-). I am most certainly not confused :-).

I suppose the two moderated threads this morning, one regarding a huge sale, and the other regarding sex with someone's wife, are not to be regarded as SPAM? And the claim is being made that these haven't been appearing on a regular basis over the past few months? I'm beginning to see the huge advantage that these web based fora hold over the COZY and canard-aviators mailing lists (which are, in fact, spam free) - you can get your sales literatures, sex tapes, and aircraft information all in one place :-).

Well, then what I would suggest is that you and he design and build something that you think might sell, test the crap out of it, and when it's proven, then see if you can find a market for it. At that point, you can quit your day jobs and start selling kits.

Do you wake up at night with the desire to run into the bathroom and flush $100 bills down the toilet repeatedly? Are you an aircraft designer? Have you built aircraft before? Are you a test pilot? Do you want to do this to make $$$?

I have electric senders (capacitive) in my COZY. Many folks have something similar. However, if all you want to do is see the fuel level on the gauges in the back, get yourself a small mirror and keep it in the map pocket. You don't have to turn around at all to see the gauges. I have one of those in the plane too. I'd use capacitive senders instead of mechanical ones - less to break and more reliable. I might put the senders on the inside wall of the strake baggage area, but that's 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other.

For those of you not on either the COZY mailing list or the canard-aviators mailing list, I posted the following message yesterday. I would appreciate email responses, rather than only posting here - it's very hard to integrate these web based messages with the emails that I save. Feel free to post here to to engender discussion, but if you've got feedback or suggestions that you'd really like me to take into account, email will ensure that I pay attention. Folks: I know it's early to start thinking about OSH this year, but I just received the "COZY Forum" signup sheet from the EAA and need to get it in to them within the next couple of weeks to arrange for the forum (and tell them the name and topic). I seem to have become the de-facto owner of this forum, since Nat's not doing it any more and ACS (owner of the COZY plans) doesn't really have anything to contribute to the forum. I think that it would be good to rename it from the "COZY" Forum to the "COZY / RAF Derivative Canard" Forum, and open the floor to the whole canard community, so that we ALL can benefit from the information transfer. With that in mind, I'd like to get feedback on a number of areas: 1) Is this renaming / opening up of the forum a good thing? 2) What COZY related topics / presentations / issues / should we discuss? 3) What non-COZY related topics should we discuss? 4) Does anyone else have a presentation they'd like to make at the forum? (10 - 15 minutes or so). a) Steve Wright might talk about his "Stagger-EZ" b) Terry Schubert could talk about the CSA c) Other (videos, etc.)? 5) I will give some form of the standard COZY spiel, and probably talk about the propeller loss and repairs as well (showing how sturdy and easy to fix these planes are to newbies). So, any and all ideas are welcome - we had over 100 folks at the forum last year and ran out of time. I'd like to keep this as a vibrant, useful forum for the whole canard community, so speak up, and I'll see what I can put together.

While I appreciate your thoughts, Len, I don't think that I ever said that. Although at 6:45 AM after 4 hours of sleep, who knows what I said......

Both of you. Him for offering that ridiculous amount for a LE, and you for turning it down. Never heard of a LE going for anywhere near that amount. The really nice ones are in the low $40's. Two folks at Scaled have purchased O-235 LE's recently for the mid-high $20's each. They're a little ratty, but they both fly fine. $35K will get you a nice one, and $45K will get you a REALLY nice one.

Nah..... There are few if any A&P's here. There are many on the canard-aviators mailing list. You'll get more responses (and more accurate responses) there than you will here.

How often do you tighten the battery cables on your car?

AFAIK, Jim's still in business, but he can certainly be difficult to get in touch with. WRT antennae, there's nothing that's specific to RST - you can buy all the parts from other sources.

You probably should have asked the question before spending the $300. While archer's antennae certainly work, they don't work any better than the $5 antennae, designed by Jim Weir at RST, do. The only problem with the copper foil antennae occur when installed incorrectly or on extremely flexible airframe parts. When installed correctly, they work great. Not to mention that these antennae have been discussed to death in the COZY mailing list archives over the years.......

Yes. Yes. Which is why stretching a canard aircraft is not to be taken lightly.

Nope, but I haven't been looking, either. www.ez.org usually has a few listings, but D.O. keeps track of all of them.

If you haven't done any major glasswork yourself, you can't. That's why you need a pre-buy inspection by someone who knows what they're doing. If you know something about aircraft, you can inspect the systems, however. Of course, if the plane's been flying for 10 years and has 800 hours on it, that's probably a good indication that the aircraft is sound. That certainly helps, but it's not absolutely necessary. However, I would NOT purchase an aircraft that didn't come with the plans, all applicable paperwork, and POH. If you're looking for a LE, you should contact David Orr - he keeps tabs on canard aircraft for sale, and knows which ones are good ones.

If you haven't already, join the "canard-aviators" mailing list on Yahoo Groups. Many more knowledgeable folks populate that list and will be able to help with your questions.

Do you have a specific aircraft in mind, or are you asking about LE's in general? If a specific one, which? There are many folks who can do one or the other, depending upon where the aircraft is and where you're willing to fly it to (or pay to have someone visit). I can't do the CI's (not an A&P), but I can certainly do the PP inspection. I can also recommend other folks, if you desire.

See: http://www.cozybuilders.org/cad_files/ under "Chapter 22"

Other than it being a complete kludge that'll break your passenger's leg if given a chance, costs more than the electric version (especially if you just buy the actuator yourself rather than get one from a canardian vendor), is much harder to install, is less reliable, weighs more, and takes up a lot of useful room in the center console? Nope. It's great :-). Mine broke twice on me (cable came out of the nicopress, which isn't used per design specs in the manual system), and scared the crap out of me once at 10K ft over NYC when one of the two return springs broke on me. No problems since installing the electric system, especially with the throttle interlock as described on my web pages.

Nope. Yup. Totally different impedances. There are at least two or three companies selling cell interfaces for headsets/intercoms - they go for anywhere from $100 - $200. Look for their ads in the magazines or on line. Don't expect to get a signal above 3K ft AGL, and there only if you're lucky.

Here's what David said in response to a question regarding elliptical lift distributions: "Actually, the overall elliptical sum comes from Trefftz, who theorized that the induced drag could be measured best in the far field. To do this, he used a survey plane a long way back from the vehicle. At this survey plane, nothing is known about what produced the wakes. What matters is the distribution of downwash at this location. Typically, the Trefftz stuff is taught for a single wing, but if you have more than one, it still works the same." A Google search for: Trefftz overall elliptical sum canard turns up some useful links, the most useful of which would be an AIAA paper that you'd have to pay for to get, but it's title is: "A fundamental comparison of canard and conventional configurations" by Tad McGeer and Ilan Kroo. Anyway, this should point you in the right direction.

Ummm, no, according to CAFE, a canard airplane is the most efficient aircraft they had tested up to that point. There's a LARGE difference. The worlds most efficient powered aircraft at this point in time (late 2006) is the Global Flyer, which is a conventional aircraft. See: http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/ Of course, comparing aircraft with different engines, different load capacities, etc. is apples to oranges. If you want a comparison of canard to conventional, you need to design them to have exactly the same power and weight. No one has yet done this, so all the arguments are theoretical. However, to the O.P.'s question, do a google search on "canard" and "David Lednicer" - he's written some reasonably comprehensible explanations over the years as to why canard aircraft are not quite as efficient as conventional or 3-surface aircraft. Basically, it has to do with the fact that you want the lift distribution of the aircraft as a WHOLE to be elliptical (NOT just the lift distribution of each wing individually), and the downwash from the canard on the main wing makes achieving this VERY difficult in a canard aircraft - you end up with a lot of lifting surface that isn't doing much. I may have some emails from David at home in which he goes into more detail about this - I'll try to remember to look for them this evening after I vote.