JLKnolla

Congratulations Jerry, that is fantastic news.

Keith, I have a spreadsheet for budgeting a build-up using the Open-EZ plans, can't put my finger on it right now but I think it worked out to about $6K in raw materials from AS&S. There is a guy here on the forum who does CNC hot wire cores that only add about $1-2K total but make a much faster build. All up with engine and avionics is about $30-45K depending on equipment and engine selection. As far as metal tube frame with non-structural aerodynamic skins think all the Mooneys, Glastar and Sportsman, Titan T-51, Bellanca Lightning (fastest piston prop GA plane on the planet at one time), the beautiful Lionheart Staggerwing and a few others - it has been done before.

Contract/consultant engineer, specializing in reliability, maintainability, logistics support and project/systems engineering for aerospace and defense companies. I live in my RV when working away from home (99%) of the time - home base, Wifey and Daughter are in Albuquerque, I am presently in Salt Lake City and will be relocating to San Diego in about 3 weeks to work on a foreign Regional Jet program.

A real tragedy. I met Vickie when Beagle and I flew up to Golden West back in June, very nice and gracious lady. This is a terrible loss.

For the record, I'm not suggesting DD in theory is more draggy, just saying that the difference between what is calculated vs. what the real world needs may yet result in some changes specific to Waiter's plane. Look at Wayne Blackler's or Bill James' NACA style DD inlets and compare them, spillage drag can be significant, especially for an otherwise very clean plane. Not making any criticism of Waiter's design BTW, just saying that DD cooling is a significant change from the baseline and that inlet area, plenum design, exhaust area, etc., will all contribute to whether it works or not, and if so, how well or not. This is why we call it EXPERIMENTAL aviation. I remain confiddent Waiter will get it all figured out.

Keep in mind that there are many things going and multiple changes all introduced simultaneously any one of which could not yet be optimal (DD cooling is my best guess at a culprit). I know Waiter knows this, just saying that there are I bet many little things that will present themselves and be fixed. Key at this point I think is to make one fix at a time, e.g., oil cooler inlet/exhaust, then DD inlet and plenums, then maybe a flowguide for spinner, etc. Don't forget prop settings too (coarse pitch stop, etc.) Glad it is flying OK, I am confident Waiter will track it all down.

I will put in my $.03 ($.02 adjusted for inflation). The question really relates to my biggest putoff with canards, takeoff (TO) performance. Canard takeoff performance is limited by several things when compared to a conventional aircraft, lifting power of the canard, cg position, low overall CLMax (can't use flaps on main wing without some exotic mechanisms like the Starship's variable geometry canard to maintain the aerodynamic balance between wing and canard), lack of prop blast on pitch control and poor acceleration. Only a couple of these are things you can actually do something about with a given design, mainly acceleration and CG. Operate light and at aft CG like Waiter says, or move to a CS prop to increase the rate of acceleration. Since most EZ's seem to have cruise pitched props, acceleration is just plane slow, couple that with limited lifting ability and we really can't expect anything other than the TO performance we get. Changing landing gear geometry (main wheel axle location) could improve TO performance In fact, it would be interesting to get Waiter's opinion on TO performance with the prop change on his Long. Others have commented that TO performance in the few CS prop equipped Cozy's is significantly better than for fixed pitch props - I suspect Waiter can really feel it but am interested in his observations rather than my own suspicions.

Have you considered a flow guide (like a reverse spinner) for forward of the spinner Waiter? I know Klaus sells them, and LongEZ.com too. I would suspect that to be more important given your new DD cooling scheme - maybe exhaust augmentation too depending on where your pipes exit the cowl.

Jonesin' for an update....how goes it Waiter? Do you have a qualitative before and after handling feel yet? Hope all is going according to plan.

My apologies to Crissi and Randi, I should have asked them the question privately to avoid the swinging unit syndrome - lesson learned.

Excellent! Still waiting on a reunion tour - talk about mudflaps my girl's got 'em.

Congratulations Waiter, this has been a long time in coming and I know you will approach this 're'test phase with your usual professionalism and attention to detail. Hope the rough running clears up with an injector cleaning and that the performance blows you away (then you can blow all of us away). I have said it before but think it bears repeating, thank you so much for putting in the additional time beyond this serious upgrade and modification effort to catalog it on your website for all the flyers and dreamers out here in happy data land - it is a tremendous resource and a great legacy. Blue Skies!

Great post Rick, and thanks for the insight - now I am even more excited to see how it plays out.

FWIW, Ezelady did not post the pix here, ColinB did. She came in to answer a few questions, including one about her being a 'toy', and has received what I would call an aggressive if not hostile line of questions dripping with innuendo - something others have commented about in regards to this forum, myself included. She says they have consulted with engineers, pointed out that someone there does the design work, and they DO build, modify and FLY planes down there, I would leave it at that. Hell, there are Cozy guys apparently planning on putting 540's into their planes chiming in on 'modification', I mean puhlease - Mr Pot I would like you to meet Mr. Kettle. What kind of a heart attack would Nat have about that? Or Burt and the 1100 lb empty weight and 320 or 360 powered Long's? And yet, they fly and fly reasonably well in many cases - I flew one a couple weeks ago myself. It is called EXPERIMENTAL aviation for a reason - once we change something from the original design it is no longer the original design, I think we all understand that whether we are putting 540's into our plane designed for the 320/360, or sticking a kerosene burner into something based on the Long-EZ, or dropping a 3-rotor Mazda into an otherwise stock airplane, or substituting carbon for S-glass. To quote the country duo of Montgomery-Gentry, 'You do your thing, I'll do mine'. Let's give each other a little benefit of the doubt about not being stupid or dangerous, or at least try and ensure the way we ask a question doesn't come out that way.

Andrew, David Orr might be able to recommend someone in the area to inspect the project with you (canardfinder at att dot net). John