jprock

I agree... I think a mea culpa is in order. Is there a bit of stress in your life today Marc?

I am 1200 hours into a Velocity XL build and am building in the garage like you will be doing. The best way to keep moving is to do "SOMETHING" every day. Or at least a few things every week. I keep a log as we all do, and I calculate out how much time I spend per month. I am averaging about 36 hours a month. In 33 months, I just try to stay consistent. There have been a couple of times that my motivation has lagged, but I take a week off, and then start with something small and then just go do it.

Also, don't look at the big picture, it can be very daunting. Just have a goal of one part to build, or one item to do. It is a bit like going to college... don't look at it as four or five years of your life, just look at it as a few classes to take... eventually all the classes add up and you have a degree. In this case, all the parts and projects will add up and you will have a plane.

Jack

According to that chart, there is a 1 / 100 million chance of dying while masturbating.... Man I would hate to be that guy!!!

Getting Back to the original question...

The LongEZ is probably not the best choice for that size and weight. You would probably be better off looking at a Cozy or Velocity.

I would also make sure that any open BNC connectors have a terminator at the end. These will eliminate any RF noise that an open BNC connector can pick up. Cheap insurance...

http://www.cablesnmor.com/bnc-terminator-75ohm.aspx

I don't want to defend the RRL. It may be a bust, or if they figure out how to "WOW" the crowd, it may turn in to something very entertaining. My point is that you are putting down the RRL by dissing the Velocities. I think most people and most canardians think the Velo's are very cool looking. Are they as sleek as the LongEZ... no. But, I personally think they are very cool.

Kinda the difference between a Porsche and a Mercedes. They are both very cool, and I've owned both. But for long haul traveling, I don't want to sit in a Porsche for hours. For driving the curves... there is nothing like a Porsche. They can both be very cool, just slightly different missions.

>> Old Velocity's and the Cozy do NOT look as cool as a Longeze or Berkut .... that is a FACT

Calling an opinion a FACT... That's interesting.

I'm with Brett, (since we are building Velo's ) The looks and style are all a matter of opinion, which I won't get in to. Sufice it to say, my PERSONAL OPINION is that I don't want to be wedged in to a sardine can with no sun cover for hours on end... I'd rather fly in style!! (Oh flamers, Bite me!! )

The main reason for using the Velo as the racer is the Rocket fuel tank is a sphere that has a diameter of almost 4 feet! They rip out the rear guts of the Velo and cram the tank in the back, in front of the engine bulkhead. Try putting that in the back seat of a LongEZ.

Would kinda ruin the Cool lines you're hoping for.

Jack

It may be a bit far for you, but I'm half way through building a Velocity XL-RG in Folsom. You are more than welcome to come over and take a look.

Jack Prock

scratch that.. we meet the second Wednesday of every month.

Jack

Hi,

Keith is building a Velo XL-FG and lives in Roseville. He belongs to the Auburn EAA #526. I am also a member of that chapter and we meet the second tuesday of every month usually at 7pm, but during the summer there is sometimes a bbq that starts at6. Feel free to come on by, everyone welcome...even to the bbq.

I'm building a Velo XL-RG. I don't know of any EZ or Cozy builders in the chapter, but there are three Velo guys, one is flying. We would be able to answer about 90% of your questions. I am also in Folsom...so was Ron Springer until he moved to the dark side.

The Cozy is probably closer to the EZ in build techniques, since it is from scratch. The Velo is from a kit, so some techniques are a bit different. You can come by and see my Velo in progress anytime. jprock@rocketmail.com

Jack Prock

I don't know the details of the construction of the spar. I received it as part of the kit. Yes there is foam inside. I think they use this as a base for layering the glass. velocity uses Triax extensively for wings and structures, so I would assume it is several layers of Triax, but I've never seen it built.

Jack

That is the standard spar that comes in the Velocity kit. The foam is not brown, but the epoxy Velocity uses turns brown over time. The spar is a pre-molded part that is quite stout.

I'm not sure the owners (the Swings) were thinking of shutting down the business, but I do know they were looking to sell for a while. Unlike the Cozy, the Velo is a very large commitment up front. In the late 90's and earlier this decade, Velocity could be bought in several sub-kits. It is much easier for people thinking about building to commit to a $5,000 sub-kit, than to a $50,000 full kit. I think getting away from the sub-kit idea was a bad decision. The down side to the Cozy is that there are alot more people that start, but never complete the project. In the kit market, RV's have done a better job flusing out the kit to make it easier to build. CNC'ing the parts so they match up perfectly. And I think most mechanically inclined people just think of popping rivets as easier than mixing resin...until they try both.

I only hope the Velocity management will not move away from the kit manufacturing all together. My hope is that everything goes as planned, the money pumped into the kit manufacturing from the Rocket Racing League will help flush out the kit building process, and the exposure of the RRL will re-energize Velo sales. We can only hope that RRL will have 1/10 of 1% of the financial upside that NASCAR has.

Who would have guessed NASCAR would be a $10 Billion per year marketing machine. (I have to admit, I don't GET

the Nascar thang at ALL!!)

Most people in the Velocity community know Uli. He built a beautiful airplane and is a very gentle sole. The latest is ( from Velo Reflector) he is in an induced coma with burns over 40% of his body, at this point survival is not certain.

I am sure that if he survives, he will have a very heavy heart for the rest of his life. Whether he remembers the details of the crash, remains to be seen. It could be a while before the FAA gets a chance to talk to him. He went in to the coma before his friend and passanger past away. All of us could only imagine how devistating it would be to be in his shoes.

I think another problem to think about is the damage to your prop from FOD. A friend has a Velocity that he has gone through three props because of FOD. The nose wheel tends to kick up any loose material and the prop is right there to catch it. I would hate to guess how much damage your prop would see flying off a gravel strip.

So BASICALLY, for the uninitiated, you can think of it as a layer of UNI over a layer of BID...

You don't get it!! I KNOW what Triax is. I've used it. I have some in my garage right now. I tried to give a simple explaination for those that have never seen or used it.

Now you can re-write the same in-depth explaination that you have written twice. We all acknowledge you know the details of what triax is.

Triax is basically a layer of Uni over a layer of Bid

^^^^^^

So BASICALLY, for the uninitiated, you can think of it as a layer of UNI over a layer of BID...

It is not only the fast-build wings, but all Velo wings are built with one layer of Triax. I built my Velo wings last summer. There was no vacuum forming. Just wet out the sheet, squeegy out at much resin as possible and move on. The biggest problem was making sure the primary strand of the Triax was straight. Triax is basically a layer of Uni over a layer of Bid. But the primary strand in Triax seems thicker than the primary strand in Uni (just my opinion).

I might have missed something... Did the FAA doom the Starship? I don't seem to remember that. (I'm starting to not remember a lot of things) I do remember the Starship not having enough range to be competative with the market. A friend of mine was a Beech salesman and he said the biggest problem was that the Starship couldn't fly New York to Florida without refueling... That was the biggest possible market, and he lost many sales when people found out about the limitation.

Could someone remind me what the FAA did to kill off the Starship?

>>Yet Another thread HIGH-JACKED!!!!!!!!!! he he he I couldn't help it.

You're right... I hate when others do that and I found myself falling

into that same trap.

Mea Culpa!!

Aiman,

I agree with most if not all of what you said. I just know from writing embedded drivers and real-time software for thirty years, that no software or OS is immune. And since most of the good hackers haven't focused on Apple/ Linux, they are not being pummeled like Microsnot stuff.

The army can say it has a completely bullet proof car all they want, but until a lot of people start shooting at it, the claim is hard to prove to a certainty.

I guarantee you there are vulerabilities in Apple/Linux, just not enough effort put in to exposing them yet.

Jack

I am not a fan of Microsoft AT ALL, but Apple and Linux

make a big deal out of being Virus resistant. My opinion is

that they just haven't become a target yet. With Microsoft

having 90%+ of the market, the goobers that write

viruses and other malicious things, want a big bang for

their effort...they only get that attacking Microsnot.

Anyway, here is a little help with Vista to

get rid of the constant questions on everything you do:

Vista special setup instructions to

Turn Off User Account Control (UAC)

1. Click the Start Button

2. From the Start menu click Control Panel

3. In Control panel click the User Account icon

4. In User Account window click the 'turn

user account control on or off' option

5. Next click 'Continue' when the user Account

Control permission box appears

6. In the next window remove the check mark

from the box next to the 'use user account

control UAC) to help protect my computer'

and then press OK

7. A message will now saying 'You must re-start

your computer to apply these changes'

8. Now click the Re-start button

9. After your computer has re-started the UAC

will be disabled

10. To enable UAC again simply go to Control panel

and click on the Security center Icon. In the

security center window, in the section

marked 'other security settings' a button

marked 'Turn On Now'

11. Press the Turn On Now button to re-enable

User Account Control

12. Finally exit the Security center window and

then Control panel.

Jack

I'm a Software Engineer in California. Mostly realtime embedded stuff... does that make me a geek, a nerd, or a dweeb... not sure.

I'm also building a Velocity in my garage. 400 hours in, who knows how many to go!!

Jack

You might contact Velocity about your CNC machine. They

may buy or rent it off you. They still cut all their cores

by hand.

Jack

I agree with the others here... it is a personal preference thing. Some say tomato, some say anoying little red fruit!!

Since my experience is with EZpoxy, I didn't realize some of the other epoxy's have crytalization issues. I would probably be a "scale" user if I had to deal with cleaning the pump over and over. I guess it depends on the epoxy.

When doing the wings of the Velocity, it was real nice to go to the pump, hit the handle 30 or 40 times, and just start the hand mixing mombo. Large layups like this take a bit over half a gallon of epoxy. I'm sure if you do a bit of pre-setup, such as the excel chart, the extra time could be cut to a minimum. I was a nervous novice when I started, and the added security of having a machine do the ratios, just made sense to me.