longez360

Here you go

I have completed my downdraft mods to primer stage. Will fly this weekend. Two separate carbon plenums/diffusers fed by NACA ducts. Induction and oil are self contained (inlet through throttled exit). Only cowl air is cylinder exit air. Not sure why the picture didn't show up. . .

Well I guess mine is one way of doing it, and there are certainly endless ways on some incredibly beautiful machines out there. I am a geometry nut, and love mathematics so I used it endlessly to create lines all over the aeroplane. It's overkill I know but I loved building my Long EZ... For the nose (and my new downdraft cowls where I hotwired out 90% of the upper cowl) I jigged up convex (male) templates each side of the nose and ran the hotwire down. I did the same for the plan view. I then drew a centreline from pitot to canopy centre, and level lines from the pitot to fuse side. I was careful not to sand into these lines. The bottom was different. The NG30's have an decreasing radius going with FS reduction, so I kept that same rule. The curve continued to get tighter. I think it was 11" longer total. Long time ago, I was 21 (35 now).. I did peel the potato on the radii. The plan there is to grow the pitot radius back to the curve on F22 lower corners at the same rate. I was a nut about blending radii into flat areas. If you don't do it on a line, you see the dents in the sun. I was absolutely sure I didnt want that. That's why it took 16 years to build! :-)) The top is a blend back to the canopy rails. The foam frame was 6" long hotwired oversize sections. I used micro and a small dob of 5 minute at the interfaces. This way I didn't have to wait for a cure. So many tips and tricks but we all generate them. I'd hate to have people follow mine and end up with the same thing I have. One of the beauties of our machines is the way you can inject your own character. Every EZ is SO different. I like that a lot. I love the new ideas people have. I have things on my aeroplane that are just plain daft, but I may have done them on the evening of 911 or with my dad who passed away before it flew, so I left them. Lots of memory triggers that remind me of good and bad times. One thing's for certain, the finished result is HUGE fun. It's a real kick in the shorts, particulraly with 195hp and a hertzler climb prop from a MKIV Cozy!!! WOW! :-)

I used styrofoam for the nose (sides, bottom and top), the canard fairing, the area aft of the canard, the canopy rails, all the way back to the firewall. Was able to hotwire slightly oversize the whole lot, sand the last 0.100 then glass the entire peice, stem to stern, concurrently. The canard cover area and canopy leading edge was already glassed so I flow cornered those locations and knife trimmed out my canard and canopy. Everything fits with a knife trim thickness, no micro. This gave me good lines from pitot tube to firewall.. The nose was hotwired with templates, which gave me clear boundries to adhere to when sanding. My strakes are hollow d-noses. PVC. If per plans, I'd stack PVC. Although styrofoam is affected by AVGAS, I believe it would need to penetrate PVC laminated both sides. I don't see a problem there, if done correctly. PVC is best however.

I used the brock version on my Long EZ. I did have brock make the pivot section (that which is colinear with the hinge line) longer to account for my canard root fairings. This way the section in the root fairings doesn't rotate on a radius to the hinge line and is flush.

You are probably referring to John Atkinson's beautiful aeroplane. Mine is http://www.ez.org/feature/F0411-1/F0411-1.htm Don't know anything about interglas. Is the plans system that expensive these days? It builds a great aircraft. I operate my 360 Long EZ out to 1875 lbs MTOW and cruise at 200KTAS most places. Will an interglas Long EZ be capable of that?

I'd avoid using urethane if building again. I'd use divinycell. Urethane is a poor core system with a torrid history on the vari eze airframe. I used styrofoam for the nose on my aircraft - hotwire templates are way faster and way more accurate than a sanding block. I used urethane in my centresection spar, but would use Divinycell PVC.

All, MGS L285/H285 available in Vic from Ironbark Composites, torquay - Worth every penny. Sensational laminating room temp cure resin system. This is the system I recommend. Araldite K3600 is a reasonable resin system with similar structural properties. Half the cost of 285. There is a beautiful varieze being constructed with this system. Jabiru use it. If you exchange materials from the plans recommended system are you testing to ensure that they are equivalent? Please be very careful. If you are not happy paying extra for the highest quality materials, slow the build down on your aircraft until you can afford the build rate with them. Styrofoam is available throughout the country. Vary your slurry to give good peel strength. Some of these foams do not absorb slurry even though they are all 2lb density. Be VERY careful with peel ply. If you use a different peel ply, the mechanical bond properties will change. Some peel plys are ultra smooth - Not good for secondary bonding, but great for other purposes... Prep for bond correctly for any secondary structural bond. It is imperitive. Be safe! Cheers Wayne

Hi there, I have Lyc 360 powered Long EZ VH-WEZ here in Melbourne which I built both here in Aus and in the USA. I have 200 hours on the aircraft. I have used a variety of room temp cure resin systems for laminating the rutan BID and UND, and 282 style Carbon on my aircraft. In Aus I would use: 1. MGS L285/H285 available from Ironbark composites in Torquay VIC 2. Araldite K3600, available from Muery in VIC ..... .... ... .. 10000000. West System Epoxy. I would not use West System Epoxy for any given task on your aircraft. It is an apalling resin system for laminating. It will give very poor quality layups in terms of fibre volume fraction, fibre straightness, fibre nesting (the other reason we squeegee), and as a cured laminate will have average structural properties. It results in poor quality layups even for experienced users. . I would not use it for dry micro either. Stick to the plans methods. 'Easy to sand' = 'erosive in rain'. Cory Bird has it right. I have used/tested Safe-T-Poxy, Safe-T-Poxy II, EZPoxy (my second favourite, same as Safe-T), MGS L285/H285 (superb), PTM&W Proset, West system, and K3600 Araldite. Cheers Wayne 0437 674 648

Tony, Sounds like you are making all the right choices. Your aeroplane will be fine. Keep up the tempo, and all the best with your project. Plenty of help out there. Richard is a good resource. I may be able to help in places also. Cheers

My CG worked out perfectly. When I first flew the aeroplane I was 286lbs (crikey!!), I'm now 235lbs... I used the O-360, the Wilhelmson nose gear and a tiny 17AH Odyssey battery moved 9" forward in front of NG31. Plan that simple (or with a 320), and find out where you finish up... It's an easy calc in the building process, but not meant to be an exact science. With the Wright nosegear, I didn't need the nose extension for the 360. It does look a damned sight better than the stnadard nose however IMO... I have flown the aeorplane right through the CG envelope and right out to 1975lbs. On the day I did that test (30/12/06), I took off from Leigh Creek airport in South Australia, OAT was 101degF, field elevation was about 860ft. . DA was HIGH! It was the test of tests for my aeroplane.. I climbed out at 1200 ft/min and flew home to Mangalore averaging 201KTAS at 9500ft AMSL, although I pulled it back to 160KTAS with moderate turbulence. The Long EZ is a super SUPER aeroplane! I can't shut up about it. :-)

Bill Butter's antennas through spruce work REALLY well, including the all-internal XPDR antenna. No need to ground plane (like an ADF or LORAN), and no need to dangle it out in the breeze. There is no dielectric effect.

See pic attached The small triangular exit pictured allows air to bleed from the duct (mounted inside the berkut scoop) back to the cooler. Plan is to add a tunnel that 'trumpets' back to the face of the oil cooler. See http://rotaryeng.net/how-to-cool12.html, scroll down or use Edit Find on explorer to search for Kuchemann and Weber. The data is there to design a correct duct. There is no other way to do it efficiently. There are many systems being designed and installed on Long EZs. I've seen some good ones and some bad ones where people have tried to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of good 'facts and data' on intakes, diffusers, plenums, augmentation and outlets. I'm using all of it. The only problem with downdraft on Long EZ's is making a NACA submerged duct work properly (it's meant to be submerged), so a sloping cowl of 7 degrees or so is rqd.

Two reasons in my mind for going parallel valve (Long EZ driven): 1. The angle valve version is significantly heavier. 2. The induction tubes on the angle valve protrude MUCH further under the strakes and out from the firewall. Cheers

Richard, my best WOT speed was out to 212KIAS (sea level) - this was pre my new induction mod and with a Klaus prop (shortened 2"). I was spilling a lot of air out of my Berkut cetreline scoop. I was using it solely for ram air. I also had a significantly undersized bracket air filter with the same cross secion as the scoop (not good). I opened up the firewall and made the firewall exit elliptical (refelcted the Berkut centreline scoop shape on top of the scoop size already there). This encroached into the hell hole area, so I made a carbon tunnel that expands from the standard Berkut scoop inlet size back to the larger exit at the firewall. The K&N 2710 filter pokes down into the scoop, and has a model aircraft spinner on the front to help the air flow around the filter. The tunnel also has a very small triangular exit next to the filter which allows air to bleed back to the standard Berkut mounted oil cooler. Works great. Oil temps down significantly, CHT's balanced and speed went up 6 knots. I also now have a leak proof filtration system. The driving factor iis when I do eventually switch to downdraft cooling, I can add a tunnel (Kuchemann and Weber style) running from the small triangular exit back to the oil cooler face, and copletely close off oil and induction. That way, downdraft is a cylinder and accessories cooling issue only, and the oil cooler will see air across it's entire face and not just the centre. The Hetzler prop is stellar. I want to get Gary to make me one with more pitch, but takeoff now is like being shot out of a cannon compared to the Klaus prop you and I used to use. Still like my Klaus prop for cross countries and lower fuel burn. The Mangalore fly-buys were certainly dived into, but it doesn't take much! I could go through 230KIAS if I had the stomach. There was zero turbulence and nil wind on the day. The fastest it's ever TAS'ed was 242KTAS over Mt.Baker in beautiful Seattle, WA. My girlfriend KAte and I were descending, it was dead still, and my Rocky Mtn uE made the calc. I love the O-360, and wouldn't swap it for anything. On a good day I'm probably out to 215KTAS, but want to get some serious numbers for confirmation. I hate it when people talk dribble about airspeeds! Cheers

If this is a Lyc 320-B series you have your work cut out. contact Steve Vovolsek.

O-360 A1A 265lbs dry O-320-D3G 255lbs dry (E series even heavier) Stick with the 360. You can go 9.2:1 on a parallel 360 and get 195hp. going 10:1 on a 320 is a possibility also, though you only get 180hp according to Lycon. I'm gald I went with the 360, and wouldn't trade it for anything. 1) Full length Longeron Layups, not tapered. 2) Installed 4 off 1/8" 4130 'extrusions', 1" x 1" (bent to same radius as engine mount tubes). 3) I added NO extra layers of glass at all the extrusion locations. The 'extrusions' are still 1/8" thick. 4) My engine mount is a WeldTech that was specifically designed and built for an O-320 (not a modified O-235 mount). - I added two tubes from the upper extrusion locations to the upper cups. 5) I use Matco's same as Mike M's. Actually, mine are triple puck. 50LT's. Great brakes. 6) Berkut cowls for cooling. Would do downdraft now: Naca submerged, into diffusers, inot plenum, then exhaust augmented. 7) Everything was light - starter, alternator etc. Ti firewall.

Lycoming O-360 parallel valve, H-series pistons, fuel injection. Power-to-weight: 265lbs dry (compared to 255 for the 320 D3G), and 195hp for the 360. Speed: I did a 222KIAS pass down the runway at Mangalore Australia on Sunday, and wish I'd taken it to Jackpot when I had it in the USA to show what the 360 can do. It eats 320 Long EZ's when you have the right prop.. Climb: 2200fpm @ 95 KIAS. 1700fpm dual. Cruise climb at 140KIAS. Take-off: Hertzler Prop - awesome.

Adam, From memory, Mike's aircraft has the front seat moved forward somewhat from the plans specified location.. I may be wrong... It was recommended for shorter builder/pilots some years ago in the CP. On reflection, I would probably have considered adding volume to the rear seat. I was 17 when I built my fuselage sides, so didn't think ahead... You could also widen the firewall and backseat - This would push your spar blocks out, changes to your gear leg mounting, and your engine mount will need to be custom along with cowls, but I know a number of people who have widened the firewall significantly with great success. Cheers - Wayne

I'm 6ft2" and 270lbs, and it's a sensational fit. I do fly with my arms in the strakes actually (if there's room) for added comfort. I also removed the foam from front seat to instrument panel both sides and stiffened with CFRP/Glass. I also lowered the thigh support (and panel leg holes) 1" although this is not necessarily. EVERYONE I meet asks how I fit, and it is like an armchair. Superb. Best seat around. Cheers, Wayne

The more I look at downdraft installations, the more I'm dissapointed. . . I'm on the way with mine (pic attached), but wont do the transplant for another year or so. There is a massive amount of data (particularly online) out there on inlets, diffusers, plenums, and outlets... There is equal amounts of data concerning air cooled heat exchangers; oil coolers, cylinders, etc. There are NACA reports that descirbe plenum cooling of an A-65 for example, and literary works by Kuchemann & Weber (Aerodynamics of Propulsion, check out http://www.rotaryeng.net/how-to-cool12.html for a snippet), and Kays &London that take the next step beyond Hoerner. Try a trumpet diffuser instead of a straight or straight-walled divergent duct. Try revising exit geometry to re-accelerate exit flow. Don't give up efficiency becuase you see it on someone else aeroplane. Cheers, Wayne

Agree with Waiter. Delrin is perfect for this job. I have hand made Delrin spherical bearings, per the CSA newsletter, made by Rick Girard. I have a nice tight system, with nil friction.

Reminds me of the "turn your cell phones off at gas pumps. It can cause explosions!" dribble... There's a reason why (in places that have caught up) they removed the catch that allows hands-free pumping of gas into your car - so you have to pump it, without being able to slide back into the car while it's pumping and cause static discharge. . . I have a Bill Butters, all internal XPDR antenna in my strake and it works extremely well. Don't be misled by avionics companies, and foam core dielectrics. The antenna does not need to be in the free airstream. This system works very well.

Reminds me of the "turn your cell phones off at gas pumps. It can cause explosions!" dribble... There's a reason why (in places that have caught up) they removed the catch that allows hands-free pumping of gas into yuor car - so you have to pump it, without being able to slide back into the car while it's pumping and cause static discharge. . . I have a Bill Butters, all internal XPDR antenna in my strake and it works extremely well. Don't be misled by avionics companies, and foam core dielectrics. The antenna does not need to be in the free airstream. This system works very well.

Here's mine. The only thing I would change is to remove the AV-10 Engine Monitor, and replace with a new Dynon EMS. Everything else would stay, without reservation.