Richard Riley

Look closer. 4 twin jet Cri Cri's. http://tinyurl.com/g5m4z They're 45 lbs of thrust each. I'm thinking 6 of them on a Vari EZ would be a lot of fun. They list at $4k each.

I once read something about the early days of the BD-5. I don't know if it's true. It said that the original short wing version was so difficult to fly that the first 4 airplanes had all crashed on takeoff, and 2 of the 4 pilots had been killed. I read that and thought, OK, what was pilot #4 thinking as he opened the throttle? It doesn't cost anything to be listed in the Kitplanes guide. If you have a listing and you sell an info-pack, you're in the black already. It's like, it doesn't cost anything to have a website. So you get stuff like this http://www.skywalkerjets.com and this http://www.independentaircraft.com and even this http://www.tronguy.net Having a website doesn't mean you have something that works. Neither does having a listing in a sport plane guide.

There are some risky decisions that a person can make selecting a homebuilt. One of the classics is being the first in line to buy a new kit. Even if the prototype flies fine, a new kit will have unexpected bugs in it that will make it more difficult to build. The early Berkuts had problems with the lower ends of their gear legs. You can count on there being problems like that. A bad decision is to pick an airplane when the prototype has never flown. A really bad decision is to pick an airplane where the prototype has flown once and scared the test pilot so badly he won't fly it again. See: Dreamwings. Or the pilot who test flew the "Redbird" modification of the Cessna 177 - "I hope this thing will climb high enough that we can jump out of it." A really, REALLY bad decision is to pick an airplane when the prototype crashed on it's first flight for reasons that are not well understood and have not been corrected.

That's all the information that I have.

It was it's first flight that ended with the crash, so though I don't know how many hours - I suspect it was less than one. It's not the LEZ wing/canard, it's something else entirely.

What would your rates for a Berkut 540 paint scheme be? I'm interested in using some very new paints that haven't been tried on aircraft before.

Just an idle thought. Why does it need to be registered in the US? As long as it's registered in a ICAO signatory country, it can be flown here.

If it's a proven design, that's all that matters. But DANG that looks spindly to me.

A conical engine CAN be converted to a dynafocal engine, but the cost is prohibitive. There's a Long EZ out there with a converted O-290 that ECI changed - welded up pads, machined them, bored them. It's cheaper just to get the right engine. On the Berkut, when we went to the 540 - the 540 engine mounting points are bolted onto the case. To reduce their size we made our own conical mount bolt on ears. The result is a little more vibration getting to the airframe, but no big lumps on the cowl.

I'm not an engineer, (though they seem to think I am at work). I have to agree with Aubry. Without running an FEA on it, it does not look right to me. The DF Long EZ mount was much beefier than this, with more and shorter support legs. When it was used for 320's it had to be re-enforced with 2 more tubes on the top mounting points.

Yep. Error when making the molds. The foam wing versions have winglets the same size as the EZ.

That's an awfully restrained way of putting it. Looks like nice work, so far. On a 4 place canard it's tough to get a nice, fair, pleasing shape to the nose. For the name, you could continue the "Zee" name series. It's a 4 place, not so tight as the Cozy. Big enough for you and your friends. The Frenzy. 'Cause you gotta be a little nuts to build you own airplane.

Oh! So that's what it's called! I've done a lot of very, very silly things with airplanes. I've built (hell, am building) flying systems and structures that are wildly different just for the sake of difference. Or elegance. Or wackiness. I've just put 3 years into an aircraft just to prove out a wing that's unique for it's low part count and planform. There's not a spec of practicality to it. It's just an for the heck of it. But this one flat out impresses me. It brings to mind the design process of the Tu-144, the CA 60, even the Christmas Bullet. I'd thought those days were gone forever.

Marc? What's a box? RR

I hope you're trolling.

Are there any pictures of it on the web?

Buy some. Also buy some good LP primer and paint - I like Sterling, but that's just me, any one of a dozen will do. Buy the smallest quantity you can, probably a pint. Someone around here would be happy to donate a scrap piece of composite. Paint it, put it in the sun. I'll loan you my pyrometer to get the surface temperature. Use a meat thermomiter from the back side. There's no truth like ground truth.

Kinda, if you definitiion of Kinda is kinda broad. Like, a lizzard is kinda the same as a cow, cause the both have 4 legs and walk around and eat grass. They have a totally different purpose and mechanism. They reflect IR, so dark colors don't get as hot in the presence of radiated IR (like sunlight). The ceramic beads (as used in the space shuttle) slow down the transfer of the heat through that particular layer. They do nothing for reflection. The bead have one very good application on my plane. I have a 540 engine, and the exhaust is in board, close to the prop hub. That's the best place for it aderodynamically, but you run the danger of cooking ht eprop in the exhaust. I have those patches of the prop painted with insulative paint. The heat danger there isn't radiative, it's conductive, the hot gasses are actually impinging on the prop.

It WILL radiate down into your structure. Ceramic additives are insulation. They slow down heat transfer, they don't prevent it. The surface will heat up - just a little slower than if you didn't have the insulative paint. There's nowhere for the heat to go on the underside. The 6" thick foam inside the wing is insulation, too. You can get some pigments that are made to reflect more IR than carbon black (the standard black color). If you want to see if it's good enough, paint a sample panel, put it in the sun in July at 10 am, and take temperature measurements every half hour or so. However... If you're worried about what color to make it before you've started building, get another hobby. You won't ever finish an airplane. You'll spend several thousand dollars, and a couple of hundred hours building, and you'll decide it's not for you and sell it at a loss. If a someone signs up for piano lessons that's never even sat at the keyboard, and his first question is what color his tux should be when he makes his debut with the NY Phil, you know he never will. He shouldn't buy that concert grand piano. If you want to work with computer graphics, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not building an airplane. Sorry to be blunt, but I've seen it too many times.

A swept canard would be significantly more complex to build. It could be done, and it might look snarky, but it wouldn't be faster. You'd have to do a different canard attach system, since it would put torque on the current lift tab system. Since the elevators would no longer be in line you'd have a more complex way of activating them. Since span would be reduced you'd be creating more induced drag for the same lift.

To the best of my knowledge it hasn't flown since the first flight in 95, which ended badly, though it appears to have been largely rebuilt. (this is the part where people with sense run away)

Parrish dart, by Jim Parrish. About 4 years ago a good friend of mine quit his job and moved to Florida to apprentice on the Dart. The idea was he'd work with Jim on a thunder mustang being built for a client during the day, and in the evenings and weekends work on the dart. He was there for a couple of months. In that time he figures he did about 2 hours of work on the Dart while he was there. He came back to LA, he's flying a Velocity now.

http://aero.stanford.edu/reports/nonplanarwings/nonplanarwings.html

I don't know if he's including flapperons, but I'd bet a lot of money against it. If it were me, and I were willing to bet my life on untested wing mods (I'm not, I've got a little girl that I want to watch grow up) I'd look at Ilan Kroo's work on the C wing. I mean, if you really want a few extra knots that badly, there are worse things that you could bet your life on.

Klaus is slowly building a new pair of wings for his Long EZ (not a typo, not talking about his Vari) with a different airfoil section and a smaller area. Also blended winglets. He says they won't be for sale.