Marc Zeitlin

I believe the answer is yes, and I believe this because at least one canard has had a bird impact and survived. IIRC, I saw some pictures of the canard, in which the L.E. was crushed back toward the spar approximately 3". The impact zone was about 6" - 8" wide. I think that the most probable outcome from a strike the size of a bird will be to do this (or somewhat more) damage to the canard, which would then have to be repaired/replaced, and the canard mount points inspected, but I think it's extremely unlikely that the spar/shear web would be compromised. But that's only my $0.02, and we've got one datapoint, at most.

It's fairly obvious from looking at the pictures that SOMETHING took out the prop, and then one blade of the prop left the engine at about the 5-6 oclock position, just barely hit the trailing edge of the aileron, and continued on to take off the winglet above the rudder. The other prop blade went somewhere else, and didn't hit any part of the plane. While there is certainly some question about what made the propeller break (and it's been discussed to death on the canard-aviators list), there's no question about the facts above. The damage traveled from the center outward, not from the outside inward.

Sand off as much of the SP as possible - you don't want it on your plane. If you're going to use an epoxy primer, you'll be fine, as it will encapsulate whatever SP is left. See the COZY and canard-aviators mailing list archives for my opinions on SP and Top Gloss.

Nope. Since I don't know anything, I can't say anything :-). They haven't told me what I'll be working on because they don't know yet. I'll be talking about last year's 2.5 week cross country trip, and my adventures on it.

What is it you hope to achieve?

For experimental amateur-built aircraft, ANYONE can do ANY work on the plane at ANY time. You could get any old bum off the street and have him/her replace your wing spars, if you were high on crack. The ONLY thing that is legally restricted is the annual conditional inspection, which an A&P (does NOT have to be an IA) can do, or the person with the Repairman's Certificate can do.

The wing corrosion issue listed above is only applicable to Vari-Ez's. The Long-EZE and the COZY III and IV have a completely different wing attach system which does not have the same potential problem.

At Max. Gross Weight, it's probably closer to 20K ft. At lighter weights, it'll be somewhere between 25K and 30K ft. With the standard Lycoming O-360, you'll never be flying anywhere near these altitudes, because it'll take you forever to get there, and you'll be slower than down low, unless you pick up a hell of a tailwind. If you use a different engine (turbo charged or otherwise), then the Service Ceiling will be different. And no, you don't need any any special certificate to fly that high (other than an Instrument Rating, to be in Class "A" airspace), because the aircraft isn't pressurized.

There are close to 2000 Rutan derivative canard aircraft flying (V.E., L.E., COZY). There has NEVER - let me emphasize this - NEVER been a structural failure of ANY properly built aircraft of these three types. NEVER. In around 2000 instances. Not one documented case. Any time there has been a structural failure (and there have only been a very few), it has been traced to a SEVERE issue with the builder's work. RV's are wonderful aircraft. Cessna's and Pipers are wonderful aircraft. However, those three companies can NOT make the same claim. There HAVE been structural failures of properly build instances of these aircraft. Your acquaintances are severly misinformed and/or deluded.

You may want to contact the Beriev corporation and tell them that their aircraft will never work. See: http://www.beriev-usa.com/main/index.html One of these was at OSH last year, parked in the North 40, IIRC. This should NOT be taken as an endorsement of the OP's design, however. Apparently not, if the Be-103 can be believed. The fact that a scale model of your final design worked in no way speaks to the viability of a different design. Existence proofs are hard to refute. The Be-103 has some similar characteristics to the OP's design. The problems _I_ see with the OP's design is that the spray from the canard will go right through the prop/engine, while the Be-103 protects the prop/engine by having the prop above the wing. Another problem is that canards are not particularly suited to water ops, since they generally take more "runway" than other configs.

Once you have a PP-SEL, you can get a multi rating in a day or two, for $1500 bucks or less. Hardly a stopper.

We're getting far away from the topic, but my point was that the wing configuration of the aircraft is NOT the dominant factor in determining it's glide ratio. Well, sure, but there are any number of standard configuration aircraft that have glide ratios as good as LE/COZY. Look at glider design if what you're interested in is maximum L/D ratios. Rutan designed the Solitaire, but while it flew OK, it was a dud from the standpoint of glider performance. The "stall resistant" design point of the canard configuration does not lend itself to optimizing the drag bucket synchronization of the two lifting surfaces, and a canard configuration aircraft will almost always have a slightly lower L/D max than a similar performance conventional aircraft. There are NO canard configuration competition gliders (at least not any that win :-) ). You win some, you lose some :-).

As an aeronautical engineer, I can tell you that the fact that both wings are lifting in the "up" direction has almost nothing to do with the glide ratio of the aircraft as a whole. Ask a Vari-Viggen pilot what his glide ratio is :-). Low drag and wing aspect ratio are far more important factors. Not a clue. However, since Ivan Shaw is an aircraft designer, I would THINK that he'd covered those bases. I was told that Mike Bowden's installation was VERY nice and very well thought out, but that he never got the performance out of the Jabiru's that he had expected. As far as your specific questions, you'd have to ask Ivan and/or Mike.

You guys are funny. See: http://www.roughriver.org/2001_photos.html about 1/2 way down. It's been done. It works. Mike removed the twin engines and is either in the process of putting a single engine back on his plane or has already done so. IIRC, Ivan Shaw (of Europa fame) built a twin engine Norton Rotary version of a Long-EZ as well. And there have been others.....

You might want to read the "Canard Pusher" newsletters #6, 7, 8 (and maybe a few more). The original VARIEZE had combination elevator/ailerons (Burt called them elevons) on the canard. Testing of this aircraft went reasonably well, and although Burt later changed the design to a more conventional layout, it exhibited none of the "unintentional and almost uncontrollable pitching" that you postulate. For many reasons, a full flying canard or ailerons on the canard isn't a particularly good idea, but "unintentional and almost uncontrollable pitching" isn't one of them.

Completely untrue. I manually add each requester to the COZY mailing list, and only after they've provided a full address and phone #, as well as some building/flying status. It's WAY too much work for a casual spammer to go through, and gives way too much opportunity for them to get caught. That's certainly possible here, too, but it gives an indication of the fact that these things don't just run themselves (as you well know). How much spam have you seen on the COZY or canard-aviators mailing list? It's been about 8 years since the last time I saw any, I think.

Wow. An argument for controlling membership, like the mailing lists do. What was it I heard about web fora being immune to SPAM?.......

And my response to that was, "figure out how much power you'll need". We've got 60 Amp alternators in our aircraft - that's 720 Watts at 12V. That's barely enough to keep someone's feet warm INSIDE the plane if you use a 12V electric heater. Now you want to use that to melt ice along 35 feet of wing? Even if you think you only need to melt the first 6 inches (which I don't buy for a second), that's 17 square feet of ice that needs to be melted, with power that can barely raise AIR temperature by 20-30 degrees. Not going to happen. But it doesn't. According to the articles, it can be pulsed at any time, no matter what the ice thickness, and it will blow the ice off. Boots operate very slowly, so they can't do this. Yes, nice in theory, impossible in practice, without a lot more heat than is available electrically (or probably even at ALL, from the engine in any manner). That was my point - that there's not enough electrical power to heat the wing/canard leading edges to a temperature that will keep ice from forming or to melt it, when the wing is traveling through freezing cold air at 100-200 mph.

Sure, if you don't care if the canard keeps providing lift. Personally, I find this whole notion of anti-icing systems on these planes to be ridiculous, but that's just me. No. Did you read the articles about how it works? The electric pulse causes the strips to move apart approximately 0.02". This means the skin of the wing has to be able to expand outward 0.02". This is the motion that causes the ice to crack and break apart. No motion, no ice removal. My copper foil antennae don't move any.

Before you guys get too lost in this, maybe you ought to do some calculations to figure out how much POWER is needed to melt ice electrically over the many square feet of wing area, while moving at 100 - 200 mph through freezing rain. There is some work being done on pulsed systems - do a Google search on: "Electro Expulsive Separation System" and "Ice Management Systems" For some more info, but you're still looking at a LOT of power. I believe that: http://www.airplanedeice.com/home.php these folks are the successor to IMS - they're talking about 100-150 Amp alternators at 50-80V. Plus, you couldn't bury the system under the glass - it has to be able to move.

I think as long as the buyer had the builder's log, so that he could prove that the aircraft was built for as Ex. Am-Built, then he'd be set to get it re-registered. He wouldn't need the original certification, as long as the aircraft has been DE-registered. It would be just like a brand new inspection - all you'd have to do is tell the inspector that someone else built the plane, and you aren't going to bother applying for the Repairman's certificate. It's the plane that gets the airworthiness certificate - not the builder. Waiter - YOU know that! :-). As you said, it can't hurt to talk to the FSDO (as long as you don't give your name until they tell you what you want to hear :-) ). As far as the hold-harmless agreements go, they do help, but they're not panacea's. You cannot sign away someone ELSE's right to sue (like your bereaved significant other :-) ).

While possibly theoretically true, no homebuilder has ever lost a lawsuit because of a homebuilt aircraft they have sold, to my knowledge. This is a minuscule risk. That's just silly. Look at all the homebuilts that are sold left and right on a regular basis, and then reread my above statement. I'll agree with that - you should get a sizable discount. Huh? The plane is built, and already was certificated in the Experimental, Amateur Built category. All you need to show for re-registration is that it was built under the Experimental, Amateur Built rules (which it was, and which the FAA agreed to once, since it was already registered once). You can do this by showing the inspector the original builder's log and documents, just as was done before. YOU won't get the repairman's certificate, since you didn't build it, but that's hardly a big deal.

It's one of many. Vortex generators are another. If it works, then the answer is yes, and there are numerous folks who have done the same.

Not that I'm aware of. The V.E., L.E., COZY, Velocity, Berkut, E-Racer, etc. all have the fuel tanks within a couple inches of the CG range (which is always AHEAD of the aircraft Center of Lift). As it turns out, the rear seat passengers are ALSO right about on the CG range, so that fuel and rear seat passengers tends not to affect CG position much, if at all. Full fuel to empty in my COZY is about a 1/2" change in CG position. The one thing that DOES affect CG position greatly is front seat weight, and in a COZY (or E-Racer, or Velocity), having 2 folks in front can require moving some ballast from the nose to the rear.

The phone is the best way to contact FL. They don't use email much.