RGlos

Rich Dragonfly! I didn't know anybody in our area had one. Too bad on the mishap. What did it fly like? Speed, handling etc. Rick

Really good question. I plan on doing mine soon. First thought is to remove the entire tube assembly and glue it back into position. The problem is to remove it without making a mess. I'm thing of making an extended hole saw (like a long socket) that just fits around the OD of the tube in place.

Ha I have the standard original GU Canard. If I could push mine up to 250 Kts. I'd have to remount the canard incidence to -20 degrees just to keep the nose down. As it is I have to hold down presure on the stick at + 170 kts and that's in a dive. The only good thing a 600 hp LEZ could do would be STO. I removed the landing "L" part of this formula as it would not shorten the landing. Remember the faster you go, you have to have some way to get rid of lift on the canard. The same basic principles would apply to a 600 hp Piper Cub. My 2 cents

Hello again Dave I have done both. When on the grss I bought some patio blocks. It's not so much the water wicking up it's the weight on the soft ground. Spead the weight a little and you will be OK. Parking in the grss is one thing. Flying off of it is completely different. I have no experience flying off of grass and don't want any.

Hi Dave OK I can give you somwe hard data on that. When I parked there the very first year after a very hard rain I found about 8 oz of what had accumulated in the nose. The only entry point would be aorund the edges of the canopy of course. On the original build, l left a small radius line along the edges of the longerons. This kept the water on the outside edges as it runs down toward the front. Becuase of the puddling in the nose I cut in two 1/2 inch drain holes at the most forward point, No water gets into the wing attach holes. I also cut drain hole in the bottom of the cowling. I have the P 51 style. On a really really hard rain blowing directly at the front, I may get about one or two onces of water in the fuel. I had a "Dickey" cover for the complete plane. I found that the wind allows dust to get underneath. 06C was under construction a fuel years ago. With the dust and water and wind underneath, it acted like it wet sanded the Imron finish. since then I stopped using the covers and accepted whatever would come. The only problem is with the sun on the seat covers, I've sewn up three sets and am getting real good at it. About ten years ago I took it back to repaint it. It was a fantastic experience. When the old paint was off, I was looking at the glass like it was the day before I started the original finishing, All the magic marker lines were still under the glass like day one. What I wanted to see the most was arround the wing attach points. This is where fatigue may show up. There was nothing. Not even the snallest crack. Same for the winglet layups-nothing. You can have faded paint or look a little rough on the outside but underneath, these planes are amazing. In retrospeck I think there is even some tricks that will completely secure the canopy from water invasion. That and an inside cockpit cover.

I have had mine outside since 1986 in the Chicago area. Keep a good coat of wax on it at all times. Prefer to have a hangar but not for $400/month or a 2 hour drive. I pay $80/month. Rust is not an issue. Hail would be a problem but in over 20 years I have had only two dents from hail. About the size of a dime.

[i see the dampner spring in there, but would think that'd be an interesting balancing act between providing enough force absorption and length of the bracket / spring assembly iteself. Or not ? ... Not to worry on this. There is a damping spring on all three of the lift mechanisms, stock, Wright and Wilhelms. The spring on the fork would be redundant.

You're welcome. If you were near the Chicago area, my points could be easily resolved by letting you taxi my plane around. That offer extends to DPaton as well. I havn't forgotten your ride Dave. I will be in touch.

Two things. The swing arm shock bracket brings the wheel further up into the fuselage body. Perhaps so much so that it will interfere with the bottoms of lower instruments in the panel. Second, How are the pedals going to work with such an arrangement? Existing pedals deploy the rudders for the first 3/4 of the stroke. On the last 1/4th of travel the brakes are applied for steering. These may not be the exact ratios but you get the idea. As we know on conventional dual purpose pedals, the rudders are applied by the legs and the brakes by the toes. I would never be able to stop or even slow down my Long using anything other than leg strength. I even have the heavy duty brakes. The steering concepts are outstanding and the drawings even better but what is missing here is what the existing system "feels" like when stopping and steering. Your system may even work if you reversed the pedal convention and stop with the legs and steer with the toes. From the very beginning these planes had/have more trouble braking than steering. And then if you did get acceptable braking the friction gets the area so hot the gear legs would soften and bend. So as you work on your idea, it is not a bad idea to think also about the associated components and the experience us old farts with old planes have to offer. I could easily see a completed, workable steering system combined with a toe brake rudder pedal system being unable to stop on the first landing or at the very least raise, the pucker factor up a magnitude or two.

Ditto on the 6" wider. The extra panel space is envious as is the extra room. The back seater is even more cramped. With an electric front gear, there would be room to angle the fuel valve to make it reachable. Now with the seat belts tight, you have to have gorilla arms to reach down between your legs. I love my Long, but am due to retire soon and would love to build a two place Cozy just for that reason. Having four seats is ok but not a real priority. That would be a big cash outlay so keeping the Long up is probably more sensable.

Try the Cozy map, it's cool http://www.unc.edu/~gorczows/cozy.html Rick

Eventually, in the end the metric system will be adopted as it hs been in the rest of the world. My business is measurement and I see more and more conversions every day in US factories In the meantime I have also heard of a conversion in Europe to Euroenglish This is what I have picked up on. The European Commission have just announced an agreement Whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesties Government Conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement And has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as “EuroEnglish”: In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Settainly, this will make the sivil servents jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favor of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less Letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year When the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also. Al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”s In the languag is disgrasful, and they should go away. By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as Replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with ‘v”. During ze fifz year, ze unessary “o” kan be dropd from vords Knotaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tuunderstand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!.

Jon Not quite on the ceiling but on a shelf halfway up. I would have put it on the floor but picked it up. Fumes gas, paint etc stay close to the floor Your wood door is way better than the steel one so with a little work you can keep it warm enough to get some work done. BTW, I did no epoxy work unless I could keep it at least 70 degrees and that overnight. Even then I did most of the structural work like wings, canard, center spar etc at about 95 degrees. I waited until summer. Rick

Hi Hans Ok I'll try I have a Great American prop made 20 years ago. It is a 62" x 62" Right around 2750 rpm I'm "indicating" 144 Kts I could not tell you that it is a laminar flow. It appears that the pitch changes from the hub to the tip. It tapers, there is no question about that. I also have a BT climb prop, 64 x 60 I definately get better take off performance but lose about 5kts on the top end. Roughly that is. Yes there is some dirty air but you would be surprized what a little 1.5 meter prop does on the back of one of these things. I worry more about stones and the like kicking up into the prop more than I do about the dirty air. Rick

Jon Do all the stuff you plan in steps 1 to 3 The Garage door could be a major facture if it a none insulated steel door. If it is sheet steel as a lot of the older doors are, they are big time radiators I got some low cost 1" sheet foam from the lumber yard in large sheets. Use liquid nails to glue to the panels of the door. Beofre I did this I cols get the temperature to rise above 30 with the heater on. It was 10 outside. As I was installing the foam form top to bottom the temp started to rise. By the time I was done it was 65 in the garage. Not bad for a 10 degree day outside. BTW I have only 2" of glass in the ceiling and 2" on the walls covered by sheet rock. The heater is a 40,000 BTU overhead unit For the bottom of the door you can buy generic seals from ACE hardware. These you can also glue on but they may only last one winter. Also 65 degrees on the wall was more like 25 to 30 near the floor Rick

Try this little calculator It worked out almost exactly on my Long http://www.culverprops.com/pitchselection.htm Rick

Hi and welcome To get around on the ground, simply pick the nose up and push a little. I don't have the exact dimensions but an average guy will fit into the fron cockpit quite nicely. I'm 5'9" and 220 lbs ( little old round guy ) and it is quite comfortable. In the front, the rudder cables are adjustable so a taller person will be comfortable. In the back, I have an airspeed and altimeter for the passanger to look at. There is also a second control for pitch and roll only. Some rig extra throttle cables back there as well. Rudder pedals would be a challenge. Mine is 860 lbs empty with a rated 1475 lb gross with an O-235. I have flown at 1550 without too much of a problem. Vne is up around 195 kts. Check out EZ.com and you will find some nice cockpit shots from the pictures on the cover photos. Rick Baggage in under the front and back thigh supports, in the roll-over structure, areas to the sides about 8 to 10 ' deep that run from the front cockpit to about a third of the rear cockpit. There is also a space in the rear seat and behind the rear seat. All of this is for small canvas carry-on type baggage. Just stuff them into the available areas. Sone one else may give you more exact details but this should be good rough-idea information.

Jon Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your overview of the Oshkosh trip. The story and images were great. Marc Zeitlin also did a great report on his site. Rick