No4

"After this "reboot", you will see that there's a new crew of builders and flyers attaching themselves to this site." But I bet it won't take them too long to realise one site is administered by an egotistical nerd from la-la land, who in 18 months has got as far as hanging a spanner from his garage wall, and the other by someone who has actualy finished a fantastic Cozy Mk IV, with an excellent web site to boot. see you all next door

I'm not one to say " I told you so!" but Jon, "I told you so!". We all did, six months ago, but you couldn't take a hint. Now look what you have gone and done, another canard website formed because of your bad manners. Instead of making this site stronger, you have driven away the very people needed here. Good Effort

From the old RAF ad Engines 2 x 0-320 4 seats Empty 1600 lb Load 1270 lb Gross 2950 lb Fuel 115 gallons US Span 31.4 feet Wing area 133 ft Loading 22.2 lb/ft2 Power loading 9.2 lbs/hp payload full fuel 660 lbs Max cruise (70%) 184 kts Fuel flow cruise 17.8 gph range 1044 nm Econ cruise (55%) 168 kts Fuel flow econ 13.9 gph Range econ 1208 nm Climb (2950lbs) 1500 fpm Climb (2220lbs) 1900 fpm SE climb 2950 lbs 310 fpm SE ceiling 6500 ft SE climb 2200 lbs 550 fpm Stall 2950 lbs 64 kts Stall 2200 lbs 58 kts Time to build 2000 hrs plus

Congratulations John! You must be over the moon. Excellent work ! Must have been a real buzz to get her airborne. It's been really great to follow your progress, thanks for the website. Inspirational stuff. Safe flying, Happy landings Adam

Here's that yellow Cozy, from the main Cozy site, photo section. http://www.cozyaircraft.com/ The caption says it belongs to Bryan Geisler of Sun City, AZ. The Cozy next to the F-16 has prominent red flashes. I still think a bright colour is a good idea in snow covered mountains. Does it get very hot where you are Joe? regards Adam:D

I'm not cut and pasting, and hope I can get away with this link, it is after all the result of a simple Google search. http://www.cozybuilders.org/mail_list/topics98/noise.txt ANR headsets make a Piper Cherokee Archer much more bareable, and combined with having the engine and prop in the back, an auto conversion replacing that awfuly loud Lycoming, I would imagine it will be very quiet indeed. http://science.howstuffworks.com/question124.htm

"I'm satisfied that he is the most prolific, innovative engineer in the history of aviation or pretty much anything else." Couldn't agree more Jim, How long until the plans become available for White Knight and Spaceship 1? Now that would be fun to build in the garden shed! __________________ Could you call this a "Super Cozy"? PT6 gas turbine 1600hp 6 place pressurised 320 knots 30,000 feet ceiling 1300 nm range http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=2 AASI now own Mooney, and are hoping to bring it into production:D

Good to see you back Largeprime, How's it going bro?

Thanks alot Tyson, Very sobering stuff...Very interesting. I'm visiting a glider competition at Omarama before easter. Plan to study all the oxygen systems and interoggate the pilots fully. Steve Fossett went for the world altitude record in a glider out of there, it gets very good mountain waves. Recently a two man glider went 500 kmh at 20,000 feet , average speed of 200 kmh, they broke some world closed course record. Cheers Adam:D

Can't see any reason why he should be banned, I'm for re-instatement.

Cheers Darrell, I was guessing you might be a helo pilot by your handle, AND a Tomahawk pilot to boot eh? "I have seen most everything that can go wrong in a helicopter go wrong. Engine, drivetrain, electronic and hydraulic failures of most every sort" Well it's good to hear your still with us, Each to their own I suppose, I get the same reaction from my chopper pilot friends. Different breed I guess. I must be a girl's blouse. Still won't get me back in one though.

Hallo Joe, I'm guessing you've already read this, seeing how you have a post just two lines up. But just incase you missed it. http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=580

I used to have a little 12volt kettle element that you dip into a mug to make a nice cup of tea whilst on the road. If it was fitted inside an insulated metal tube, with a small 12volt car dashboard fan, and connected to a variable resistor, would that work? Any good?

Cheers Dan, I'm sure you can see why I took offense to your words that my post was useless and misleading, and that I was giving aviation a bad name. This is after all a thread about accidents. Perhaps I should clarify that my opinion is not based on reading one article in one magazine. I consider myself lucky that having myself and an instructor in a Tomahawk makes us unable to upload any fuel, due to weight, and thus I learn't to fly in a Cherokee and Cessna 172. I have seen a video of the tail plane during stalling practice, and that was enough for me. Tomahawk pilots are usualy very good, because they have learn't in a difficult machine. But their propensity to spin, and poor stall characteristics are enough for me. The wing is so poorly designed it requires a strip attached to the leading edge, to make the stall less dangerous. Heaven knows how awful it would be without it. I spent several years in the British army, and had quite a few hours as a passenger in various helicopters. Low level at over 100 mph along fire breaks in a pine forest, slipping under power cables, at night, holding a box full of high explosives, is not something I want to repeat. Here the Robinson's used for training fall out of the sky on a regular basis, and from my research almost all helicopter pilots have horror stories to tell. The physics of a helicopter, imho, show that it is trying to twist and vibrate itself to death. Two flights in microlights were enough for me. Apart from being very uncomfortable, the flimsy nature of their construction, I find worrisome. Soaring over Victoria Falls, observing crocodiles sun bathing on the Zambezi river bank was made rather less than enjoyable when I looked up to see a single bolt connecting me to a thin sheet of nylon. Fixed wings on the whole I find much more pleasant, and I'm sure they are much safer than automobile travel. In fact there is no place I'd rather be than in a Boeing 747, hopefuly one day up the front, on the left. Best Regards Adam

Hello Dan, I'm not entirely sure of your point. I thought it might be of interest to give a synopsis of the accidents which occured here. The 13 accidents mentioned have complete reports, yet it would have taken me hours to copy the lot to this site, and frankly I couldn't be bothered, and this site is an innappropriate place either way. I have spent many hours reading full accident reports, and often download recordings of the "black box" cockpit flight recorders. Perhaps I should have listed all the succesful flights which took place inside the same time period, so our readers could realise just how safe it is to fly? I never stated homebuilts were in anyway more dangerous than manufactured aircraft, and I disagree that the most dangerous time for flight is after repair by a certified mechanic. It is almost certainly when the aircraft has NOT seen a certified mechanic for a long time. If you were to study the accident reports from the african continent you would see that most have seriously dubious maintenance. Either way, I will never get in another Tomahawk, helicopter or microlight (note microlight, not homebuilt) again, and your last paragraph only reassures my opinion. Cheers Adam

Firstly I guess it depends where you fly. The standard drop in temperature is accepted at 2'Centigrade per 1,000 feet climbed. So if you are flying out of Florida when it is 30'C, it should only be 10'C at 10,000 feet, possibly higher with an inversion. Whereas down here in winter it commonly drops to -5'C at sea level, so at 10,000 feet it should be -15'C. The Piper Senecas and Chieftans actualy have an avgas furnace behind the passenger seats to warm the cabin. Crazy imho. I really don't like the heater muff at all, especaily the welded version. Even the clamped on type is dangerous imho. If you get water in there, then the hot exhaust will accelerate the rusting process. Fine if you can check it regularly, but it might be difficult to remove for inspection. I'm not really interested in getting Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Electric pants for me.

Funny you should say that John, as I read your post I was opening my mail, in which was the bi monthly NZ CAA newsletter magazine, which has all the latest accident reports. This issue we had 13 crashes. 3 Helicopters, 3 Agricultural fixed wings, 3 Microlights, 3 Fixed wing, and one glider. One rescue Helicopter hit a tree at night in marginal VMC, one was spraying gorse and crashed due to pilot error, the last lost power and had a heavy landing. After studying Principles of Flight I'll never get in another helicopter. Of the Ag planes (they call the pilots "temporary New Zealanders" here), one's wheel fell off on take off, one hit a power cable, and one's engine mount failed. The microlights (which I will DEFINITELY never get in again), one idiot was doing a fast fly past sideways in a gyrocopter, at a very dangerous airstrip in the mountains, rolled 90' and crashed, the second hit a tree practising forced landings, and the third was taxi testing became airborne and ended up in the trees. A glider pilot misjudged a X-wind forced landing in a paddock and hit a fence post. Finaly the fixed wings. The first was a student in a Piper Tomahawk (another plane I will not go flying in, shivers) which spun on approach during solo circuits, a Pitts Special hit a fence in a misjudged cross wind landing, and a homebuilt Murphy Rebel nosed over in the snow. This is a pretty common trend here, Helicopters, Microlights, and Ag planes are much more likely to crash, and my advice is to keep away from the lot of them. You can see that there were 10 pilot errors, 2 mechanical failures, and one that could go either way. Of the fixed wing non ag planes, all were pilot error.

A couple of interesting sites http://www.planecrashinfo.com/$index.htm http://www.airdisaster.com/index.shtml http://aviation-safety.net/index.shtml My "favourite" is the Hydro Air Cargo 747 freighter which crashed at Lagos, Nigeria recently. Tower cleared them for the ILS on 29R (at night), despite the captain questioning ATC 3 times that he had a NOTAM saying 29R was closed for construction. Guess what happened? The 747 hit a ditch, then a bulldozer, ripped off some main gear and almost lost an engine before halting in a ditch. ATC went AWOL, and was found at home two days later by the police. http://aviation-safety.net/pubs/BCG-Lagos.pdf

Feeling pretty nervous making repeat appearances in the Rotary section. But just to climb on my high horse called "Pedant", to argue about the toss, split some hairs, etc etc. 1. Throwing apples and oranges to the masses, I'd say that if you put a 280 hp turbo nutter rotary in the Cessna 172 beast, it would perform something akin to a helicopter. 2. If I snuck into Greg's hanger and amputated 6'inches off either side of his canard he would rotate later. 3. If I snuck back the next day and added 4 feet to the canard, then it would rotate sooner, yet you would be facing the possibility of a deep stall and death.

"Is this an airplane building and aviation information exchange, or the "Ladies' Auxiliary" to something?" Judging by the bitching in some of these threads recently, I would say it's much, much worse. Foul language doesn't bother me, but if some more sensitive souls find vulgarity offense then it's only fair to cut it out. It's not neccesary really is it? There could be kiddies reading this. "I can understand why people like Nat Puffer have said that Wicks Aircraft is just a hobby for the organ company. Jerome and I continue to keep a friendly relationship with each other as we gave him the bike and trike business to continue with." Ahhhhhh, you got to love business people eh? Life must be tough running an aircraft spruce business as a hobby. Nice to know we keep them in Caviar and Champagne. Are there any arrangements in place for when Nat goes one step further and no longer has anything to do with the Cozy? Who will be responsible for the newsletter and builder support then?

Hi tdale4, To my knowledge there are no alternatives to the IVO prop. I've never seen an IVO, but from hearing the horror stories I would be very careful. Looking at the diagram of it's design, it looked to me that there was too much to go wrong. Am I right that the one that crashed wasn't bolted together properly? Dust is the only person here with a constant speed prop, I think. It might be possible to convert a Lyco Continental unit csu to run on a rotary, but it would involve some very serious engineering. Most people, if not all excepting dust, choose the fixed pitch prop. The rotary or another high revving engine will require a reduction gearbox, unless you wish to try the ducted fan direct drive, of which there is one flying on a Long EZ, and another here planning the same. The cruise prop is used as this is what the Cozy is designed for, a climb prop would somewhat defy the point. The Cozy, and canards in general take longer to take off because of a) as you said they have a cruise prop, and b) the canard needs to fly off the runway, whereas a conventional tail plane is forced downwards, increasing the Angle of attack of the main wing, and thus rotating earlier. Rutan's stall proof design decides the size of the canard, and thus they rotate later. Cheers Adam

OK not that anybody cares, but I need to go back to school for remedial maths. 9pm eastern = 2am GMT = 2pm NZST 12pm eastern = 5am GMT = 5pm NZST so I'll see you at lunch, and I'll be able to tell you what it's like tommorrow. Jeez i really wish there wasn't the 30 minute edit rule, then i wouldn't look so stoopid!

jeez I hate the 30 minute edit rule:mad: of course it's GREENWICH MEAN TIME:D

Hi Steve, I didn't mean to be rude to you. Best of luck learning to fly. It's a great buzz to be up there ripping along at 150 mph watching the world go by. You've chosen a great plane to build, and if you get it right, I don't think there is one better. There are no hard facts about this crash, and lots of possibilities. However every time a plane goes down I think it is very important to discuss what may have happened, simply so we can prevent it happening again. If we can't learn from our mistakes, we cease to learn. In fact just about every plane crash across the world will be being discussed on a website somewhere. From my limited study of aircraft incidents, the most common denominator is what i call "Swiss Cheese". It is often not one simple factor that causes a crash, but a train of errors that eventualy lead to disaster. I hope I am proved wrong on this accident, and hope that the pilot is well and back flying soon too. But from what I hear I think I may be right. Jim has made a good description of flying a canard (something which i am yet to do). They are very slippery, so you must slow down and warm your engine. Coming down from 10,000 at 200 mph you can see how easy it would be to suddenly arrive at 1,000 feet and then nothing happens when you push the loud lever. All the best Adam

Well let me see, take the two, carry the one, ermm , I'll have to take my shoes and socks off , ermm, now that's 5am to 8am! Maybe I'll see you for breakfast,(as long as Jim promises not to "p#ss in my cornflakes" that is). Less likely when we lose summer time, that will be 4am to 7am. John, shame on you for not quoting UTC/GMT, I thought everyone new the world revolves around Grenwich, London, England. 9pm to 12pm eastern is 4pm to 7pm GMT, or if you prefer 1600UTC to 1900UTC. That's universal time co-ordinated, so even the martians revolve around Grenwich! Last time I got in a hot tub I caught veruccas. Mind you, serves me right for hanging around with the wrong class of lady.