karoliina

November 10, 2004

Interesting talk about tax deduction since I live in a country with insane gasoline taxation and therefore gas in my country (Finland) is very

expensive.

Yesterday the car fuel was cheap, I refueled my car and the fuel

did cost 1.102 euros per liter. 1 gallon = 3.79 liters.

Euro is about 1.26 USD. Therefore we can calculate how much it did cost

with your terms:

3.79 * 1.102 * 1.26 = 5.26 USD per gallon (and I consider it cheap).

AVGAS is becoming more expensive and it's price is expected

to increase by 100%. What if a gallon would cost more than 10 USD?

Your friend used 100 gallons per day gas, how he would liked if

that would have costed for him 1000 USD per day? Yes, that indeed

is going to happen in Finland.

Because of the high gas price here, I am especially interested in

alternative engines to Lycosaurus. Lycosaurus produces a very little

power compared to its enormous thirst.

Also, because of this, using an aerodiesel engine would be a very good idea

too except that the aerodiesel motors are very expensive (purchase price)

if compared to a auto motor running on gas (such as the RX7/RX8 motor).

November 10, 2004

Both rolls and loops work fine in the X-plane model of Cozy

allthough the loops build up lots of speed.

But I was thinking how a canard would be able to do

aerobatics then (if we are thinking of a "Super Cozy" in other

words something that is a step further):

- for inverted flight: better pitch control that has authority

even in inverted flight

- aerodynamic design should allow a higher Vne. The 220 mph

Vne is very low considering that many Lancairs have higher Vne

and even higher cruise speed. As a result, the speed build up in

a loop wouldn't be that big problem.

* can someone point out why Cozy's Vne is just 220 mph, in other

words, what breaks if one flies overspeed? Airplanes that have less

strong structure have sometimes higher Vne and it makes me wonder

what is the problem with Cozy. With X-plane model, it is possible

to fly several times faster than Vne without aerodynamic problems.

But that is another thing, when the control surfaces etc. tear of.

Is the 220 mph conservative Vne, the fastest speed Nat was willing

to fly in test program or is it really the top limit where after that the

aircraft tears apart?

* I can assume that the Vne becomes a problem with the prop first

(I assume it tears apart before the structure).

* About the deep stall issue: in X-plane model the Cozy does not

deep stall if the CG is on the right place, no matter how it is flown,

inverted, straight up etc. anything goes. When the nose is pointed

straight up and the airspeed becomes zero, the nose just drops

either forwards or backwards and it is possible to recover the aircraft

after that rather easily. It would be interesting to know why

this does not match with reality, in the case in reality, if the aircraft really

always goes to deep stall if flown like that.

Canard itself shouldn't be directly indication that aerobatics is

impossible since many fighter jets have indeed canards (double delta

wings) such as Saab Draken (okay Draken was not good aerobatics plane

or dogfight plane) and the newer Swedish designs. People are always

suggesting a slow turbulent profile aircraft for aerobatics, but jet fighters

for example aren't that slow despite they allow aerobatic maneuvers

in dogfight. What I am thinking would be an aircraft that has

handling qualities similar to a fighter jet. It would be possible to fly

inverted etc. with no problems with very high speeds.

I think that capability (whilst not being ideal) for basic aerobatics would

be a safety issue too. What if you end up in the trailing vortex of a 737.

Next you say that it will never happen. But errors can happen in

real life, even if you don't do any error, someone else can do it (and

you can become the victim), and one should never say never.

If you end up upside down with an aircraft

that has no control authority to roll it back would be a very hazardous

thing and in my opinion, the control surfaces should be designed so that

in emergency situation at least, it should be possible to recover the

aircraft from ANY position (it should be designed so that it would be

possible to break away even from deep stall if that would occur, in other

words, if main wing continuously stalls, it should be possible to make the

canard stall first in an emergency situation temporarily).

Also a "super cozy" should have a ballistic recovery system to save

the aircraft and pilot in the case it would enter unrecoverable deep stall

if the deep stall issue is so serious as some claim. I was thinking that

instead of placing the ballast to nose, it could contain the parachute

(another good reason for the placement would be avoiding hitting the

propeller).

November 9, 2004

I would vote for Burt Rutan, in addition of doing great

aircraft designs, he is now making my dreams come true

[with SpaceShipOne and the projects that will follow after

that and also in the sense of showing to people that it can

be done, which is also very important], it is a different thing to do

spaceships than build bridges. Yes, there is complexity in

bridges and railways, but space is a completely different

issue. There is also complexity in software and also in many other

areas of engineering. But still, it is still a completely different thing

to build a spaceship than write 5 million lines of C-code.

Burt Rutan is opening the final frontier for us, he appears to believe

in the same way as I do, space is a place, not a program.

I see no bright future for NASA, the future is in the commercial

utilization of space.

To get back to the original issue;

What comes to Super Cozy, I think that it would be a great

idea to try to improve the design if possible - in the case if

someone competent enough could do it, meaning that the

person has enough experience in aerodynamic design. There is no

perfect design out there and there is always room for improvements.

In the case of Cozy, I would see as the most important issue

the alternative engines. Old aircraft engines (meaning Lycosaurus)

really aren't very economic and also it would be a good idea

to increase efficiency by reducing weight, by reducing aerodynamic drag

(in other words perhaps laminar profiles to all wings) and

also what I have tried with the X-plane model, with a higher power

engine, why Cozy couldn't be basic aerobatics approved, perhaps

it would be very nice change. Aerobatics approved doesn't need to

mean that it would be inefficient aerobatics plane with turbulent

profile wings, but rather an aircraft that would allow flying upside

down etc. without problems - in other words, without being perfect

for the aerobatics task, would at least allow doing it if the

pilot can do it. At least the X-plane model does

barrel rows etc. basic aerobatics without problems, why it would be so

impossible to have a version of real Cozy that would allow that as well.

Wasn't the airframe designed for very high G loading after all, actually

for even higher loading than the actual aerobatics planes?

Also I would like more clear canopy (at least bigger windows)

so that also back seat would have excellent visibility to all directions.

For example some sort of that way than it was done in the

Opie-3. And of course, I would prefer that the Super Cozy or whatever,

would fly faster than a fastest Lancair out there.

November 5, 2004

Hi,

I by the way experimented with the X-plane model yesterday.

If the weight would remain the same, but the motor would

give 260 hp instead of 180, it would be a great aerobatics

plane. At least the model can do many kind of tricks and didn't

indicate any problem.

I also tried to get it to deep stall, but it just didn't go. I moved

the cg as much back as possible, but still it did not deep stall.

Finally I got it to a sort of backwards spin where I got out by

putting the motor to full power (I had modified the model to 350 hp,

so it appeared to be powerful enough to do it, I tried it also with

105 hp and it wouldn't have been enough to get it out).

I will try to modify the aircraft

in the editor since I would like to demystify what is the deep

stall on the first place. How about removing the lower winglets

in addition to moving the cg? Perhaps adding some overweight

and a underpowered engine?

Actually X-plane is pretty fun to try to find out what happens

if the builder does something wrong in the building process, assuming

that it is accurate at least to some extent.

Best Wishes,

Karoliina

November 5, 2004

That is an absurd claim. I fly my COZY MKIV into 3000 ft. runways that are 40 ft. wide with a 15 Kt. crosswind all the time, and have 500-1000 ft. to spare, both on takeoff and landing. It's hard to believe that all runways in Finland are shorter than 2000 ft. and narrower than 40 ft. - it would be very difficult to get scheduled airline flights into fields that small.

There is no scheduled airline traffic to those airfields.

Those where the airliners land, are of course bigger, usually

kilometers long (1 km = 1000 m ~ 3000 feet).

However, to fly around the country, I would like to land

to airfields that have no air traffic control and that are narrow and

short, just to visit nice places around. Still, in general they are longer

than 2000 feets and wider than just 40 feet except some exceptions

where it is not possible to land with a Cozy anyway (grass fields

and such).

That guy just believes that Cozy is very hard to fly and requires

lots of experience of high power aircraft.

But he is just that kind of guy, not only was

the question about flying, but the other things too.

He have also been trying to discourage me from starting the project,

he is pretty convinced that I just can't do it and I will waste

my life, health, money, time and whatever if I start.

November 4, 2004

Hi,

We tried it yesterday. One Finnish Cozy owner warned that Cozy

is very hard fly and land and that I could not land it to even

the biggest airfields in Finland.

Either the X-plane model is very inaccurate or his claims are wrong since

we successfully landed the virtual Cozy yesterday just with first try.

I had set wind to 8 knots and added some turbulence, but no

problem. In fact the airplanes I am currently flying, require a lot

more attention in the landing or otherwise the nose gear will

fail. Because I have never tried a simulator that would be completely

realistic so far, I am a bit sceptical, it just can't be that easy

in real life I guess or is there some unset realism settings in the

X-plane (hopefully it is not in a sort of arcade mode or something,

perhaps someone can assist me if he/she has better knowledge how

to put all realism on in X-plane if there is a such setting).

Best Wishes,

Karoliina

October 10, 2004

I am planning to build an airplane that is capable of flying 1100 nm nonstop. It has to have resonable low operating cost and preferably a diesel or turboprop powerplant.

Diesel is a good idea (IMHO). If I am going to build, that

is something I will consider.

Gas is expensive here!

Yes, exactly the same problem here,

I think it is even more expensive here in Finland...

Best Regards,

Karoliina Salminen

October 10, 2004

Hi,

Short introduction:

I am currently working as

senior software engineer / project manager at Nokia.

I can't tell much more about it except that my work somewhat

involves open source stuff.

My partner (who is also flying)

has a company which does pretty nice embedded Linux devices

based mainly on PowerPC family microprocessors. Those

would be quite suitable for EFIS systems, in the case someone

would be interested in Linux based avionics system. For more

information, have a look: http://www.katix.org

I have currently European UPL license (eligible to fly airplanes similar

to U.S. Sports Plane category) but I am going to upgrade

it to PPL in the future.

Currently I am flying TL-96 Star ( http://www.tl-ultralight.cz ),

EV-97 Eurostar and Ikarus C42. Despite of the variety of types of

aircrafts I am flying, I am currently a very low time pilot as I just

recently got the pilot's license. But that

is going to change in the near term future, as I am spending as

much time up there as possible

I am looking forward for someday perhaps owning a canard aircraft,

either purchased or self-built. Plans built aircraft could suit me better

than a fast build kit as the expenses would be quite much lower for

a plans built kit allthough it would consume more time and on the

other hand, I would prefer to spend more time on the air than in the

carage if possible but really, a plans built could be nicer to my bank

account (especially taking in account that I would need to pay

VAT + customs + overseas shipping expenses for a fast built kit

such as Velocity).

If there would be someone else from Finland (or nearby in Scandinavia)

and building/interested in canard aircrafts, please send me an e-mail and

tell me about your project. I would of course like to get a ride on

a such aircraft before proceeding to the decision to build.

Best Regards,

Karoliina Salminen

http://www.karoliinasalminen.com

October 10, 2004

Hi,

Short introduction (haven't told before, I just came to this forum):