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

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

....................................................................

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

Thanks all for the info. Tomorrow I will go down to the a/c with my sledge hammer, power saw and other aviation tools to sort this out. Seriously, Chuck Yaeger attributed his survival to knowing the systems on his aircraft and probably a lot of quick thinking under pressure. I'll have to do the same. Yes, hand propping has it's hazards as we had one runaway a/c in the club. The last thing I check before meshing my body with the prop is the throttle position. All other settings can be off and no disaster. My new wing pins are being made in comfort knowing that my wings will rip off before the pins sheer. All this and more I learned in a few days on the forum.

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

I am trying to get a ball park idea of how long it might take to finish the attached Long EZ. My uncle, who built all the pieces says he could do it in 3 weeks...but that might be 3 weeks of 20 hour days...so I am looking for a second opinion. (No offense if you read this Scott) Please take a look a the pic.

 

1. He has a 118 hp engine.

2. All fiberglass work is complete.

3. Wings, Canard, and Cockpit are complete.

4. Instruments are installed but not wired.

 

My uncle says all it really needs is to be assembled. The engine is at TBO, but will have compressions checked and some other stuff. IE No rebuild until the plane is test flown and working well.

 

Does anyone care to make any guess's? He has offered to let me assume responsibility and I am trying to get an idea of what I would be getting into.

 

We are assuming there is no rework on the stuff that is done. Uncle Scott is pretty good.

 

Thanks!!!

My estimate is about 1000 man-hours.......and probably two years.

Wayne .......Varieze 725EZ

Thanks for your replay, but to me, the name of the game is 'homebuilding' rather than 'shopping'. This has to do with the 'educational' purpose of every drawing (no matter the plane) out there.

I know I can buy, but I wanna build. Call me whatever, but I have more time than money. Building from scratch means that I can distribute expenses over time at my will, and above all it means learning.

Anyway, I won't change my point: I wanna build my own Varieze clone, hopefully an Open-Varieze and fly it some day.

Please, don't discourage people this way.

Anyway I appreciate your replay and respect your opinion.

................

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 knew that the first Varies sideslipped could under some conditions depart from controlled flight and I read that Burt limited the rudder travel to prevent that. The Varie I flew is from 83 and so far in testing I have slipped it quiet agressively and did not loose it (the carft has 400h, but after restructuring I test flew it again, so lots of altitude and a chute) The craft is heavy, 780lbs so anyway I aproach fast and that day because of the gusts I was at about 100KIAS (no speedbreak)

To cut ist short this Varie seems to not depart

 

wolf.

........

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

This does not happen to me!

There I was today test flying the restored varieze of a friend (the EFIS did reboot often and we harrowed down on the problem) nice weather CAVOK a little bit windy 18kts 28gust but 230degree wind and a 22 runway. Just hoped around the pattern quite turbulent, decided to go back got a direct base (you see it coming) decided to leave the speed brake in due to the wind (on final we had 50kts ground and 88KIAS, perfect short final slightly slipped into the wind, perfect touchdown no drift at all (I felt pride swelling up) until it made bonk and we landed on the nose!!!!!!!!!! stoped told the tower that we "tested something" put down the electric gear and taxied back. The Damage was slight (apart from my pride), my friend had installed a steel mount with a Polypropylene wheel. We ground the wheel off and part of the mount (and 5mm of the transponder antenna). I will post a picture of the installation. no heat damage to the rest of the structure and we landed fairly fast (the varie weighs 780lbs) so 80KIAS whatever that was in groundspeed with that wind.

........

Sorry to hear that you had a 'nose' landing. Seems to happen to the best of us....Guess that's why I normally lower my nose gear prior to decent to the

45 approach. I have a hard time remembering to look thru the window for the nose gear down on final.

My concern was your comment about slightly slipping into the wind on short final. The first Varieze in the hanger I have did side slips (around 79-80) and paid the ultimate price for it. I do not know if he had limited his rudder travel per Rutan or not since I never met him in person. I do not know who has tested side slipping since I first flew my Vari in 1981........so I do not feel it is a good idea to suggest doing it.

Please comment if some of you have done side slip tests under various side winds and velocities....and are alive to tell about it.

I personally point the nose into the wind a bit and straighten it out just prior to touchdown. Some landings are not the best, but I do not want to fool around with side slips ......and possibly end upside down before you realize it.

WT Johnson

Varieze N725EZ

My Long EZ has 914 Hours and first flight was 20 years ago. Every month I check the canard bolts and torque them because they do become loose. I decided to take them out to inspect them because one of them was not tightening enough. I'm glad I did. Look at the attached photos and you'll understand why..... I replaced them immediately. Is this pretty common???

 

Please inspect your canard bolts frequently for integrity.....

 

Afif Saybe

Long EZ, HR-ATQ

Honduras, Central America

...........

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

IIRC, 1100 lb. was the MGW for the VE.

 

Using a MGW of 1300 for a VE (which, per the designer's recommendation, is now limited to +2.5 G's and -1.5 G's) is an increase of 18%, which could decrease the safety margin on structure to the 1.25 to 2.5 range - certainly less than the designer wanted. Not to mention miserably decreasing performance - climb rate, speed, landing distance, etc.

 

So, yes, it's LEGAL to set the MGW anything the builder wants, but it's not possible for them to MAKE the MGW anything they want :-).

............

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

does anyone operate their varieze in the 1300 pound weigh range.

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

Hi guys

In the starting process of my Varieze restoration project, I’m reading the manufacturing manual and some pages are broken and missing (only 3 I hope)

Can anyone help me with this? I need pages 3-2, 3-3 and 3-4.

If any of you can email me scans of them it would be great, it could be 2 scans per page because I know they may not fit in a regular scanner.

Thank you very much

Luis

 

luismondolo@hotmail.com

 

PS:

Thank you WTJohnson for your information, I’ll keep it in mind.

------------------------------

Just emailed him to tell him what the missing Varieze pages were about and

offered to send him copies.

WTJohnson

Damn...I wish I was home instead of out here in the Aleutians. I'd be on this one:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Aircraft__Long-EZ-Experimental-Aircraft_W0QQitemZ160314038218QQadiZ2829QQadnZAircraftQQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Aircraft?hash=item160314038218&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=65%3A10%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

 

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

Hi everyone

My name is Luis, my goal is to build a Varieze, I feel that is right for my right now and I like it better than others designs. So I’m looking for plans. But … in this process I’ve been in touch with Waiter (Iflyez.com) and Tait (Terf.com), and they told me nothing but discouraging things about the Varieze, trying to make me change my mind to the LongEZ, basing their advices on the support, parts availability, performance, superior safety and superior design of the LongEZ.

I find it hard to believe that Varieze is a bad choice, there are a lot of them flying and all the owners seem to be happy.

What can anyone tell me about this?

Thanks a lot

Luis

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

You, of course are right about delta V. It seems like we are really talking about the same thing. It was a pleasure sparring with you. Perhaps others benefited from our clarifications.

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

Rather than arguing at cross purposes with snippets of factual information, here are a couple of references:

 

ftp://ftp.rta.nato.int/PubFullText/RTO/EN/RTO-EN-HFM-113/EN-HFM-113-06.pdf

 

for information on human tolerance and crash survivability, with a lot of very useful information regarding what it means to crash, and:

 

http://www.airaffair.com/Library/Archive/Part1/emerg_landing_techniques

 

which is an earlier subset of:

 

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/832750/FAA-H-8083-3A-Airplane-Flying-Handbook----7-of-7-files

 

Thanks for the references Marc. I quickly read thru all three and will have to try again after I recover. Guess I did figure after reading the above that crush zones and air bags would be good features. Guess the original KR design with foam wing ribs and little structural integrity had good crush zone qualities.

 

Another couple of practical points relating to Variezes and other canards: They do flip over and/or cartwheel in chest high hay and also in corn fields, so if you can find someplace other to land like on water (Hudson River ?) it may be advisable......with nose gear down.

WTJohnson

But then again, it's not the kinetic energy that is the killer, it is the Delta V (rate of change in velocity from touching down speed until stopped) as well as the various things that can penetrate the cockpit, and perhaps our flailing about due to lack of restraints. Glass seems to have a great ability to make that delta V more lifestyle manageable than metals. ie smaller delta V. modern craft of the road persuasion have foam or liquid filled bumpers and crumple zones built into them so as to reduce the delta V as much as possible in the case of a collision. Perhaps this approach could make our, and other craft more survivable in the case of a less than successful landing.

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

k1234 wrote

 

It is unfortunate that you misinterpreted my attempt at humor

 

Statistics don't lie, but they don't tell the whole story. The P.I.C. of an experimental aircraft has a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility. He(she)is totally responsible for safe operations. I don't think that anyone will argue that there aren't those out there that abuse those freedoms. Look through some of the NTSB reports and you will see that pilot error and mechanical failures are responsible for a large percentage of the accidents. Ask yourself if these accidents could have been prevented with better maintenance/design and prudent flight operations. It might be that the only thing as bad as a loose nut on the stick is a loose nut on the wrench.

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

Really!?

......and did they have the landing brake deployed or retracted?

 

I was on a skydive demo team for six years so I am familiar with high-pressure problem solving.

 

One of the most impressive demostrations I read about was the one where they crossed the nubers, shut off the engine, did a 360 and landed on the same runway......... but I'm sure they did not have the landing brake deployed.

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

I picked up my plans in about '82. The things that sold me on the design was it's stall characteristics but mostly it low drag characteristics. When you can climb quickly to altitude, chances are you will. That makes it easier to cash in on the ablity to reach an airfield 20-25 miles away from an altitude of 10K. When I compare those characteristics to the Archer I typically fly (which doesn't have half the range from that altitude) it makes for a substantial option.

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

Thanks.

 

I wonder which aircraft Steve Fossett had the best luck with?

If you truly believe this line of logic, why would you decide on a composite canard? ...... or this just some sort of debate exercise?

Just wondering.

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

The only thing that's going to save your bacon is that safety device housed by your headset.

I'd rather be sitting at 9500' in a slick aircraft with a good moving map than working with the tools available in a slow aircraft. Sure you can land a Cub at low speed ......... but my aircraft has a better shot at making the field.

 

I also use anywhere map which allows me to identify fields I can make at any point in time while I'm flying.

 

Training, preparedness an options.

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

That one doesn't work anymore. The number of pirates worldwide has increased greatly over the last 5 years or so, but the global temperatures have been cooling for the last 8 years.

 

Maybe we're on the backside of the curve.

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.

Thanks guys, but when I say VERY light aerobatics it is more in terms of relitavely high G turnsa and Scissors.

 

I may do a few Split S and Immelmans... but that is it... I don't plan of flying it inverted...

 

Anybody here piloted both, the LE and Cozy III or IV and can give me a first hand account of how both planes behave.

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

I am considering moving the battery to the nose also. Would that not add considerable weight in running the battery leads though?

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