WTJohnson

Just wanted to say that Sam Kreidel's Limo EZ was a great looking plane. A friend in a LongEZ and me in my Varieze stopped at Polson, Montana during the summer of 1992. Sam had a hanger there and apparently stayed at Polson during the summer. He took us on a tour of Flathead Lake and was a gentleman by keeping his nose gear in the down position to maintain a speed that we could manage !! Wayne Johnson........Lake Stevens, WA

....................................................................I have seen another EZ flyer still use a Sceet hose even after I told him the issues with it.......It must be because it 'Looks' so nice and that the innner wire will not move. So those who still want to use a duct with an inner liner, just imagine where that material can end up......right in your carb. I hope anyone using Sceet or Ceet ducting in your air intake system will get rid of it. Just because you may have paid for it does not mean that it is the right item. Also, check the Scat and Cat hose regularly to make sure that the inner wire has not pulled loose and is allowing the duct to collapse. WTJohnson Varieze N725EZ .....FF in 1981...... Lake Stevens, WA

Does your carb air intake system have the standard 2 1/2 inch ducting? The scat or sceet type can be sucked closed if it gets old and tired. The sceet may look good on the outside, but loose on the inside. WTJohnson

My estimate is about 1000 man-hours.......and probably two years. Wayne .......Varieze 725EZ

................I believe that Jiran at Mojave built several Varieze wings with a slip fit into the main spar, thus eliminating the metal wing attach fittings. I have seen some photos recently of a rough looking similar method, but was not impressed. I expect that Rutan figured that the metal wing fittings were lighter in weight. Re-designing the wing attach to be similar to the LongEz may be a reasonable way to go. I have not thought about it much at all, but seems feasible. WTJohnson .........Varieze 725EZ...........built 1981

........I seem to recall that when Burt Rutan cut the rudder travel in half, he also said no side slips. But that is only what I recall without checking old Canard Pushers. So I expect that he felt that the downwind wing on a Varieze could possibly still get blocked by by the fuselage in a side slip depending on speed of both the wind and aircraft. Steve Stuff apparently had several successful side slips right up to the last one. I elect not to check out how mine performs !! WT Johnson

...........I had a bolt that looked like this also a bunch of years ago. Think it was from cross threading the bolt in the nutplate. Have gone twenty years without another problem.......just make sure that the nut starts right. Mine are in the blind, so it is all feel. WTJohnson

Not a good idea. I have a Varieze with a Continental C-85. I limit my runways to 2500 ft minimum (at close to sea level)......and take off with about 2000 foot of run. I would expect a light Varieze (pilot only) with a C-65 would need a mininum of 3000 feet to take off with a 4000 ft. runway. It would be a one-place aircraft. WTJohnson

............If I recall correctly there have been several builders in the past that have set a gross weight of around 1300 lbs for their Varieze. I was hoping that someone would verify if that was really the case or not and if they actually flew at that high load. Since we have been flying Variezes for thirty years, it seems reasonable to expect some response along that line. If I had actually loaded my Varieze to that value, I would expect there would have been an occassion where I would have landed at a high density altitude field and either made a mess at the end of the runway trying to take off or realize that I should rent a truck and drive it home. WTJohnson

Since no one has responded in five months or so, guess no one has flown or will acknowledge that they have flown around 1300 pounds. Rutan recommended that we gross at no more than 1000 or 1100 pounds, but I understand that when you build it you can make the max gross what you want. I have not flown my Varieze with a C-85 anywhere near 1300 pounds. WTJohnson

------------------------------Just emailed him to tell him what the missing Varieze pages were about and offered to send him copies. WTJohnson

Just checked out the ebay listing and want to make any interested persons aware that this plane is maybe 40 to 50 percent completed at best. You will be spending another estimated one to two thousand man-hours to complete and will not be flying this summer.... The pictures of the fiberglas parts do look good, but it would be wise to have an in-person look if possible. WTJohnson

Another point in favor of the Varieze is the lack of a fuel pump being required with a Continental engine. Burt Rutan has always been interested in keeping thiings as light and simple as possible. The LongEz requires one if not two fuel pumps....one electric and one engine driven.The LongEz that was stuck at Arlington back in the mid 1990's had electrical problems and needed a new Facet fuel pump, which we did find at the local NAPA auto parts store. Don't know if the Long had a mechanical pump or not.....but should have. The Varieze has to be flown with positve G's. I have had the engine bark at me when doing a hard noseover, but not when doing a positive G roll. If you want to do any more aero work, I would suggest a LongEz or a Varieze with a similar fuel system and not just gravity feed. However, the EZ's have been designed as very good cross country airplanes and not aerobatic.....even though they have been flown doing the same in many airshows. WTJohnson

If this jest is over, I am ready to get out my slide rule (used to be pretty fast on the draw) or my chess set and challenge any of you to a duel !!! WTJohnson

Having a crash landing without hitting a solid wall seems to be rather obvious even without the physics. However, my friend that gave me the equation was my high school physics teacher long ago in 1955. The best demo I ever had was seeing the results of a KR 1 crash at Corona, CA airport also long ago. The plane crashed along the south side of the runway apparentlly because of lack of gas to the engine. If I recall correctly there was some fuel in the tank, but it would not drain with the nose pointed up. Anyhow, this plane broke up into a thousand pieces of foam and wood which slowly absorbed the energy and the pilot walked away without a scratch. It's not that I liked the KR's, since I thought that they were not structurally sound.......but it did have a benefit in turning itself into many pieces on impact as it cartwheeled. WTJohnson

Assumming the all pilots have the same amount of insanity, this equation that a friend gave me seems to still apply. E = 1/2 m (V squared) He says that kinetic energy equals one-half the mass times the velocity squared........so I guess that means that one should build a light airplane since energy is directly proportional to the weight and go extra slow since the energy is the square of the velocity. So I am going to start flying ultralights ! However, my Varieze is not too heavy (approx 700 lbs empty) and sets down regularly below 70 mph. Guess I did something right. Now all I have to do is get my mental problems fixed. WTJohnson

Dick Rutan in his LongEZ used to do a demo at airshows. He would come over the end of the runway at a pretty good speed, shut the engine off sometime during the final, make a 360 and land. I always thought that was pretty impressive. WTJohnson

Yes, Burt had talked about the anti-stall of the main wing on the Varieze during his seminars at the Corona, Calif. fly-ins during the '70's. And he also used to fly his Variviggen to the Flabob Fly-In in Rubidoux west of Riverside. He flew his Viggen to Corona one year and had to land on one main and the nose gear. Mike was the one to design and build a more reliable retract system for the Viggen. WT Johnson

Hi,I am just trying to interpret the statistics and not one individual case eg. Fossett's.. I am sure that you understand this. I picked the composite canard aircraft back in 1976 (when I picked up my plans at Mojave) because it was a safer airplane per Burt was fairly fast and was on the cover of Popular Science Magazine in 1975. Also, it could be built without a bunch of tools. Other considerations at the time were the BD-5 and KR-2 which I did buy plans for previously. Why did you ? WT Johnson

Congratulations ...........and Good Luck !!

I am responding to your comment because I have been trying to get rid of the bug on the screen for tooooooo long !My suggestion for lowering the accident death rate for canard aircraft is to add all the slow-speed devices (including smaller engine and lighter aircraft ) you can, so that you can land slower and increase chance of living. If you want to race, be the first to get to the destination.......do not do this. If you want to increase your chance of getting there and walking away...... built it to land a few mph slower.

How about a comparison between a Varieze and a Cozy III ? I have quite a bit of time in a Varieze(700+hrs) and less than ten in a Cozy III. My only thoughts were to fly the Cozy like a bit larger and faster Varieze. This was decided on my first take off when I blew thru the pattern altitude while trying to set the roll trim ! The engine was 'somewhat' larger than my Varieze ! Very stable plane to fly. I do not believe the transition from one to the other is an issue. However, the Varieze without a fuel pump has to maintain positive G's, so my split S's and rolls were done while maintaining positive G's. I did not do any rolls, etc. in the Cozy III just a few steep turns. WTJohnson

Yes, large cable will be required to run from the battery in front to the engine in the rear. So it is a choice as to what is most important in each particular case........extra weight vs CG. However, you may want to research how to use lighter weight material vs heavy cables. I recall that an award winning Varieze had used copper tape, but I can not recommend it or tell you to avoid it. Burt Rutan originally stated in his Varieze engine plans showed to use two 1/0 cables if using a starter on a C-85. He later changed and deleted the choice of a C-85 with starter. However, since I had my engine by that time and also the heavy cable I used it. I do NOT have any voltage drop from front to rear! I expect a much smaller cable can be used. One should probably check on the amp draw on starting with the starter manufacturer. The weight of the cables will also increase the nose weight since a majority of their run is forward of the CG. WT Johnson