dpaton

Well then, that would explain it nicely. EDIT: I'm going to need to do some cutting and pasting to get things down to a place where they can be printed though, even if I do pay for the 36" wide prints off of the DesignJet at Kinkos. Hmmm... -dave

http://terf.com/RAFCDROM.htm -dave

Sounds good Tony. I'll have my openEZ templates tonight, and hopefully I'll have the prints from the ez.org drawings this weekend. Is it safe to assume that the drawings mentioned in your post are related to the ones over at ez.org? -dave

Daveb- Lots of folks have EZs that have lived long and happy lives without the protection of a hanger. A cover helps to keep interior temps down and keep the rain out I think, but I don't believe anyone should have any qualms about leaving a well built and properly finished EZ outside. -dave

Rick- I'm curious more about rain intrusion than winter damage. A light dusting of snow is actually a great insulator from all kinds of things. Every time I drive by 06C on my way to work in the rain, I wonder if there's a puddle under your ballast in the nose -dave

Lynn- Right now this is a project to make all of the templates freely available. There are a few of Tony's drawings downloadable from ez.org, but they're not enough to build a plane from. Tony's drawings also incorporate popular modifications, such as a widened instrument panel and a longer nose, both of which can be seen in the downloadable drawings. Eventually, if I understand it right, there will be templates and 2/3D drawings available for the entire plane, both stock and modified. I'm sure someone will add more or correct me on the details, but that's the gist. Aside from the bulkheads, there aren't any of the templates available yet that I know of, but I'm sure when they're done, there will be a huge announcement. -dave

Indeed I am. I'm still swamped at work though. It looks like John is getting somehwere with the plans/templates hosting situation. How are your non-SNG drawings going? -dave

The last set closed at over $1200US. I gave up on plans via eBay a long time ago. Beagle (canardfinder) is much mroe reasonable, but his supply is small as he's a stickler about only selling unused plans (plans are supposed to stay with the plane). These days, I'm all about the thread John mentioned. -dave

I can smell the epoxy already... -dave

Tomorrow at 6pm I depart for Tortola, BVI, the Dominican Republic, and places south. Until then, I'm still around ;-) The drawings do look amazing. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the tidbits from them. Off to bed, then work, then vacation! -Dave

For tall guys like me with crazy long legs, it also gives the option of moving the rudder pedals a little further out, which is important. Thanks again Tony. I can't wait to put the paper on the MDF and make me some cutting templates. Yay! -dave

To say that it's a zoo here is an understatement. I'm leaving for a week in the Caribbean next Thursday, and it can't come soon enough. I only hope that I can convince myself to come back. It's going to be hard. I'm also starting to get my garage in order for what I hope is the summer plane building season. There's lots of empty white wall space to pin templates to -dave

Sounds like things are moving right along John. Good job, and thanks! -dave

Tony, Jon- Wow, I go away for a week and magic happens! After another week or three I'll be able to jump in with both feet (finishing some remodeling, moving, and then recovering from moving). This is really getting exciting.... -dave

Ed, this is the Canard Zone, and with the Cozy IV the most popular canard design to be built (since Long and Vari plans are very hard to find, Berkut is closed up, Aerocad is a Cozy clone, and KLS is gone) these days, unless you have mission objectives that are outside the capabilities of the Cozy, I don't think anyone here will try and change your mind Welcome! -dave

Still here Tony. My address is in your PM box. -dave

Shhh, don't let my boss hear that. I'm already putting in extra hours. If he thinks I'm awesome, he might ask for more Point taken. I've gone through the CDs a few times now, and I've noticed some things like that. Given how biased my brain is toward spatial reasoning, I do a lot better with a 3D model than I do with a pile of printed directions.I'll volunteer to be the first to start building with the templates and 3D models. In keeping with the rudder-challenged folks, I think we ought to make a file available that has those notes in it, keyed to the drawings somehow. Maybe like footnotes? I'm looking forward to our little project bearing fruit. I'd love to flip the switch to on, as Dust is so fond of saying. -dave

Tony- I'll give you the inherant imprecision of a handbuilt plane, but I'm still using my router ;-) It fits with the way I've always worked, and it's a process I'm both familiar with and comfortable with, so it'll be my choice. No one else needs to worry about it, and everyone but me should follow Tony's and Hans' advice about precision. -dave

Hans- I guess some of us just like the idea of having very precise tooling to build our planes from. I won't be doing any CNC work on mine, except maybe having some brackets fabricated, but when I cut the foam for the bulkheads, I'd really like to have them as accurate as possible. It's the engineer in me I suppose. If it can be that accurate, why make it any less so? -dave

Off the top of my head, it would be to be able to use a router to trim the parts to final shape. That's my plan anyway. And yes, I know all about router bits and fiberglass -dave

Excellent Len, thanks! -dave

Len, one quick question. Would it be possible for you to post or link to pictures of the different chairs? I know I don't need all of the beef and heft of the Ace, but I don't have any way to compare it to the other three to see what I really need, and I don't want to wait until OSH to come by your booth and try them out -dave

Tony, you probably have the best equipped Kinkos in the world. The ones around me can barely manage to copy 11x17 in color. Ick. There is a local drafting house that will do the prints for me though, and I plan to use them. I for one would LOVE to see a 3D wireframe, section view, plan view, and a few 3/4 views of some of the parts. The TERF CDs are good starting points, but I'll take an accurate model I can zoom in on in eDrawings any day of the week. -dave

I'm with Len on the process of generating the PDFs. If you use the real Adobe PDF writer, you can select any paper size under the sun, as well as choosing whether or not the image will be scaled to the paper size. I also support 1, 12, and 24" check dimensions. Dumping from AutoCad to a .ps file should be easy. I think everything after R15 supported it, though I could be wrong. Just make sure to get the paper size right. D or E sized paper should hold everything, no? Then run the .ps files though Distiller and set the options as best you can. In theory, that will give you an accurate PDF that's both portable and universal. Of course, we'll need each template on it's own sheet, which for me, means each template in it's own file. Who wants to try it first? ;-) -dave

The text on the CDs says: The actual templates included with the original plans provided by RAF are not included on The Rutan Aircraft Factory CD-ROM Encyclopedia due to reproduction, legal and other limitations. A majority of it, I think, is that copies of the plans (which is what caused the poor image quality on the photographs and the off-kilter page alignment) were scanned with a flatbed scanner and an automatic document feeder, which had a legal-sized paper limit. The templates are all D-size as I recall, and that means a big drum scanner. I doubt TERF had the 6 to 8 digits of money to pick one of those up just for the CD project. I'd also wager that Burt/RAF told them not to include templates, so that the plans would be incomplete and could not be used to directly build a new airplane, shielding everyone involved from liability, if only just a little. My$0.02 of almost pure conjecture. -dave