Jon Matcho

I appreciate the praise and thanks, but now this... In-bound and out-bound e-mail is not quite hooked up yet, and will need another day or two as some late DNS changes propagate over the Internet. If you need to contact me directly, feel free to do so by sending e-mail to jonmatcho@gmail.com. Thanks again, and I'll let you know when this issue is resolved.

If you stay here long enough... a lively discussion on this topic will soon hit you in the face, so to speak. Try these threads here #135 and #625.

We are now rid of MCI/Worldcom and onto a Covad T1. As you can see, and aside from some brief downtime, nothing else is different. Thank you for your support.

Okay! It was nothing a couple beers couldn't fix anyway. On the topic of your newly certified aircraft... and not to take anything away from this magnificient event (congratulations!), but this fellow's aircraft was certified too. I wouldn't blame you if you taxi tested for the next month straight. Congratulations on your achievement John.

Paranoid? Give me a break. I used the word 'assumption', and ASSumption comes back. I mention John Denver, and get back "If I had a nickel for every uninformed reason I've heard for John Denver's death..." The "STFU" comment just got to me. Actively participating in the thread, how could I (or anyone else) not take offense? Regardless, it doesn't really matter at this point. Moving back to topic with reckless abandon, here's the FAA Report on the first incident for N200TZ, the plane in question. Apparently, I was wrong when I originally theorized that the "clutch slipped out of 'drill mode'." Per the FAA report, the pilot ADMITTED that he forgot to put "the clutch" into drill mode! I am NOT CERTAIN whether the electrical tape was installed to fix that problem, but SUSPECT that to be exactly the case. IF this THEORY is correct, there probably was no tape at the time of the first incident, and the electrical tape was added as a fix. Now imagine a builder posting a question here: "I am low on funds and want to use a Makita drill to power my front landing gear. Any problems with that?" What sort of answers do you think WE would welcome this question with? In 2004, I have to believe we'd practically take a donation to get him one of the electric nose lifts or just have him go with the hand crank. I would also expect a smart arse to rise up and get a bit vocal, possibly with "are you freaking nuts?!" Think about that scenario for a moment... So then, here's the million dollar question. Why is it now that we are not allowed to ask, "Was he freaking nuts?"* * Note the subtle difference between asking someone if they're "freaking nuts" versus telling them they are.

Does anyone know why the Wicks cost for their Chapter 8 kit is about double that from the ACS Chapter 8 kit? I'm going from the latest book-sized catalogs. Also, do NOT take this as favoring one or the other. In fact, some Wicks chapter costs are less than their ACS counterparts, and vice versa. I just want to know whether Wicks supplies a gold-plated seatbelt in their Chapter 8 kit, or what?

Hello everyone. We are in the middle of switching T-1 connections right now, and actually waiting for www.canardzone.com to become inaccessible, at which point I will reconfigure the server's IP address, switch the existing T-1 connection to the new T-1, and enjoy freedom from MCI/Worldcom's domineering pricing policies. Aside from the momentary disappearance of the forum, nothing positive or negative should be noticed. If the site disappears for longer than 15 minutes, please send me an e-mail to jonmatcho@gmail.com so I am notified to do the reconfig. Unfortunately this can happen any time between now and the next 72 hours. Thank you!

A detailed report of this very unfortunate crash, as provided by the NTSB, can be found here. The Probable Cause section can be summarized as "pilot error", like it or not. Granted this is the NTSB story, but thankfully they are required to "talk" about such incidents. With most NTSB reports, one can actually learn something, regardless of whether the report is 100% accurate. Another thread here discussed the Cozy III crash in Islip, NY, where we were up in arms about the newspaper's accounting of the story. I personally wrote a letter to the editor appealing for corrections to the story. Yet, we managed to freely discuss the issues. In that thread, Jim Sower submitted a statement that makes an excellent point about learning: Finally, to John Slade, I am disappointed by your earlier post, where I cannot help but feel "STFU" was directed at least partly my way. I will see you at Sun-n-Fun, and somehow doubt you will consider saying such a thing to me in person.

We have facts -- from Steve, who was able to interview the pilot and make a report. I'd like to remind everyone that this is a discussion forum.

I might make the analogy that this feels like I am attending a funeral, but I have no hard evidence to back up such a feeling. If any member of our fraternal order of canardians cannot be comfortable posting on important matters, the learning stops, and topics with great potential suffer a premature death.

Wayne, I did indeed criticize this good fellow's nose lift without any understanding whatsoever of the history by which experimental electric nose lifts came to be. For that I admit my ignorance. No offense intended to anyone (again). With that being said, and upon further review of Steve's report, I am now fairly certain that: 1) The most recent crash happened at 10:45 AM PST on some date. This was the 2nd crash! 2) There was a first incident/crash 2 weeks prior caused by "nose gear not out all the way" 3) Both the gear and engine were damaged in the first incident 4) The engine was serviced (at least "rejetted") 5) The front landing gear had to be repaired (I assume) 6) Another pilot might have ignored the "clear runway" call 7) Nobody died! In fact, the fellow appears in good health, albeit a mixture of embarrassed and pissed. ...and now some things that are harder to say (no offense please): 8) The engine wasn't serviced enough 9) The front landing gear might not have been repaired enough (who knows given the carrier landing condition) 10) Pilot error cannot be ruled out I feel it is our duty to look at these incidents closely, to identify how to avoid when we're in the left seat. Especially since nobody died, this should even be permitted socially. I specifically poked at the black electrical tape on the Makita drill. In hindsight, I would say that might have been just a small sampling of a larger set of problems. I am only speculating; trying to find out how this sort of thing happens, so that I NEVER crash, and hopefully nobody here ever will. Even John Denver's death was critiqued to the point of "pilot error". Similar discussions happened for the recent Hawaii-to-mainland crash, and the more recent Long Island crash. I personally gained a wealth of knowledge reading about those crashes. What will be accomplished if we treat all of these "incidents" in the same fashion as a funeral, where nobody is allowed to ask "what was he thinking?!" With all due respect, and no offense intended or directed at anyone, I submit this only to gain insight into how to avoid Death By Aviation (or even just garden variety embarrassment).

I too am a Cozy-building Software Professional at Brickhouse Software, Inc. (which happens to cover all the costs to keep this food fight running.) I think this Internet/Web thing filters out quite a few who might otherwise like to chime in here. Maybe you other software guys could figure out how to auto-generate a monthly newsletter from this place. Rick, tell Bruce and Tracy to pace themselves so they have a proven Renesis kit available for me in ~6 years.

Hey Rick! I knew cozybldr was a member, but I didn't know that was you! Everyone, while visiting family in North Carolina, I looked Rick up and asked for a shop visit. Little did I know what I was in for -- a 2-day work/training session on all things Cozy. We did some work on his plane, and I got to use the plastic pressure laminate peel ply bagging technique . At some point Rick said, "Hey, I want you to meet someone in the next hangar." Just a couple hangars down was Bruce Turrentine of www.rotaryaviation.com! Got to see the insides of several rotary engine cores and see what that was all about. Great trip for me, with thanks to Rick!

I offered Frank the option to host it here. I'll let everyone know if/when that happens.

Sorry Chuck, but black electrical tape has no place holding mechanical parts together in an airplane. You have to use duct tape at the least. No offense intended to anyone.

>Is THAT a Makita drill motor he's using for a front strut gear retractor?? Two possibilities: a) Its clutch slipped out of "drill mode", or b) The rechargeable batteries ran out (joking) I'm glad he's okay, but that picture should never have come to pass.

Everyone, I find all of this very interesting, so how about using this as an opportunity to update your personal profiles with additional information? You can do this using the Control Panel link at the top of the page, or here: http://www.canardzone.com/forum/member.php?s=&action=editprofile

The opposite of vacuum is pressure. Keeping in context with 'vacuum bagging', pressure bagging strikes me as the most comprehensive and self-describing phrase thrown about. Sylabbically , pressure bagging fits: vac-uum bag-ging press-ure bag-ging Let's see how democratic we can be with this...

I agree w/CNC regarding the look of the winglets, although I don't know what poopy means exactly. I am definitely going to have winglets on my plane for the stall issues, but may make a minor change. The plan winglets have an angle in them. Why is that necessary? I suspect it would be more aerodynamic and aesthetic in a slightly different form. Minimally, I'm going to sand the angle out of my shape. An inverted canard tip is also interesting, and why we're at it, how about putting the rudders closer to the fuselage? This would require larger rudders, assuming the current rudders are as small as they can/should be. More info here. But that's a bit more than sanding the bend out of the plan form, and would, of course, require a complete aerodynamic analysis on the NEW plane that would evolve.

I don't see why not... so I added a handful.

I'm planning on going.

This is a PITA, which I don't like either, and is on the radar at the forum software developer: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62743 This can be overcome by logging OUT after you are on the forum. You can then browse as a Guest, logging on only when you need. Another trick is to use this link: http://www.canardzone.com/forum/search.php?s=&action=getdaily Aside from that, I am keeping my eye on this one and want it to be improved as much as you.

Drew, I think you meant for this link to be included: www.contactmagazine.com/Scaled/B-Day/pana8a.jpg

It has come to my attention that some of us are having problems logging out of the forum. I have also experienced this problem first-hand. I have tracked the issue down to the management of browser "cookies", specifically caused by browsing the forum at http://canardzone.com/forum or http://www.canardzone.com/forum. Both will work, but switching between the two causes problems with subsequent log-ins. If you are having problems logging IN to the forum, clear your cookies. Using Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can do this as follows: 1) Select the Tools > Internet Options... menu 2) Press the 'Delete Cookies...' button to clear ALL your cookies. To log OUT of the forum: 1) Go to the main forum page (www.canardzone.com/forum) 2) press the Log Out link. You will now be logged out, but pressing the Back button will log you back in. In order to stay logged out, you must now close your browser window.

I noticed religion, government, and war mixed into a single sentence... similar to a powder keg looking for a match. Now that we're off-topic: http://www.veteransforpeace.org