airnico

are you in contact with him?

yes, 25K$ would be reasonable considering that here in Italy rotax sells his 914 turbo for 22K€.....

I have never studied spanish, but I can understand the article for its similarity to italian: everything is very interesting but am I wrong or they are talking about a cost of 60000$?

guys, nothing new about those Matco axles to put the wheels on the C/L of the gear??

Merry Christmas to all you canardian friends!

check this out Bob:

Tom, I have the same sort of problems you describe and when it happens the only solution I found is to keep my hands over a cup of boiling water until I can stand it then immediatly in cold water. cortisone creams do not help at all. antistaminics work a little bit better. now I use nitrile gloves only but they do not work much better then latex gloves. my problem is not the contact with latex but certainly with epoxy, but looking at a used pair of nitryle gloves(the next day when epoxy is cured) it seems like epoxy is able to get in touch with skin. the only solution I found for long layups is to wear cotton gloves under nitryle gloves and tape my wrists with masking tape. now that is winter it is much better. good luck. nico

how did he manage the optical distortions?

just finished visiting those pages: you have a very nice shape, no doubt it's an interesting project. from what I see the mold you have built is not intended to go in hoven: are you going to build a fuselage that is not autoclaved??

very similar to a long-Ez but with a different canard: less span and more chord, it would be very interesting to know how it flies...... I cannot understand exactly if it is a swept canard.

check this also: www.merin.it they can build you a custom tank in every kind of shape and you should not have any metal dilatation issue.

they have 3 or 4 aircraft shown on their web page, all are canards but none is flying I think..... this one looks like a viggen. is there anything else with swept canard able to fly out there?

Lynn, who is the owner of that Long-Ez??

I cannot understand if I'm talking of the same guy, but a few days ago I found an auction on e-bay for open-Ez plans. my understanding is that this guy is from Russia, his english is very weird(more than mine) and it was hard for me to understand what was advertised, but besides the open_Ez plans there was a reference to a russian canard. I was just too curious not to buy those plans, so here what I have got(2,99$): he has sent me by e-mail(more or less 30MB) all the open-Ez templates(the funny thing for me was to receive ng30 template that I did not have before) plus plans for a strange russian canard, with radial engine, blended winglets, low wing and swept canard. at the moment I have some problems with acrobat reader and I'm not able to open the pdf manual(that I suspect is written in russian) but here some pics:

I would love to have it too!!

I do not think it's a problem to reproduce the tubes: it's actually very easy, I'm going to do this job for my retract but still am undecided about the material. cromoly vs inox vs 7075 aluminum. cromoly is of course ok but the rust could contaminate the oil circuit. inox should be ok but is expensive. 7075 al is in my garage, so I would have it for free but someone says it bends easily someonelse says his gear with aluminum tubes is certified beyond our needs. who is right???? anyway the cost for me in italy is more or less 130/150 € for a pair of tubes + cost of material. I think I can buy with 1€ the same things here that you buy with 1$ in USA but if you should pay 130€ to me to have the tubes it would be very expensive at the €/$ exchange of today, so it's probably unfaisible for you to have them manufactured in europe.

why?is it so difficult to machine a tube like that? seems like they're just slotted tubes.....

if I do this it makes no sense to me to use a molded LE. well, actually it makes only half sense: molded LEs are used to increase fuel capacity and symmetry. ok for the symmetry but I'd lose the fuel capacity. do the guys with prefab LEs suffer of frailty?

Steve, I'm not sure to understand what you are suggesting: do you mean to put in the mold 2 layers of BID then foam and then 2 more layers of BID?

thank you Lynn, good info from real experience:anyone can take his own conclusions.....

Lynn you know this retracts very very well, may you explain to me what has been updated in the gear from the 1th serie to today??

thank you: this is a very good tip!!! I actually did not do it to sell leading edges to someone else and don't think someone will ask me for that, but I like very much to play with molds, the result is excellent and always the same(symmetry).I am usually criticized a lot for being partial to molds: of course they have a cost but I don't think it's a waste of money. if I understand your words, your leading edges are glassed only on the inside, this means that there should be something else than glass on the outside: may be foam... if this is correct they probably cut foam in the shape of the leading edge, then put it in the mold and glass the inside. do you think it's a good start to put foam in the mold, glass 2 plys UNI oriented to the long dimension and then glass the whole thing to the strakes per plans like a TLE substitute?

I had some free time in the last weeks so I have machined a mold for the strakes leading edge. as you Waiter pointed out, I would like to have 100% perfectly symetrical leading edges. at this point I was wondering how stiff these leading edges have to be. Plans call for 4 ply on the fuel tank area(see sketch on page 21/4), but 3th is only on OD and 4th is for the left wing only(where you put your feet), so essentially 2 on the entire area. I have to decide how many plys I need to put inside the LE mold. this is the reason of my interest in your prefab leading edges. I think it's a good idea to glass the exterior of the leading edge at the same time I glass the exterior of the strake, but have you any idea about the number of plys that are inside(the outside is not glassed) your prefabs??

Waiter, it seems like there's no trace of the wooden piece called TLE or it's not possible to see it because of the image's perspective? I thought it's structural: is it not or can the molded leading edge substitute TLE in its structural work??

hello guys, a molded set of strakes leading edge is offered by Featherlite to increase the fuel capacity using the leading edge as additional tank space. can anyone of you give me more details about this mod please? the forward limit of our tanks is delimited by TLE: is TLE omitted to extend the tank in the leading edge or more simply holed to allow fuel to flow in? is there anyone of you using this leading edge with no problems?