Lynn Erickson

wow, I can't believe I read the whole thing. and Chrissi is right. coupling an auto pilot to the GPS or such is very much FBW. I have made many trips where all I do is sit there and monitor the flight and adjust the trim knobs on the autopilot. I made a flight where the autopilot /GPS was engaged at 100 feet to almost touch down at 50 feet. I could have made the takeoff and landing by using the autopilot trim knob if I wanted to. So I have wires connected to a device that is connected to the flight surfaces. so you could say it is FBW with a stick for back up.

very well done. I have found that most of the 360s need at least a 13 row cooler on a hot day. with a very efficient cooler set up a 9 may be enough. I had a setup similar to yours and it worked in the cool weather but got over 240 in the summer at full throttle. the other problem was it did not cool on the ground during taxi until I removed the discharge plenum and the suction from the prop in the lower cowling would pull air through the cooler. now I have a 9 row on each side mounted behind small armpit scoops and dumping into the lower cowling. need to throttle one down a bit in the winter. have a good test flight Lynn

great looking job on the down draft. when I first flew my IO-360 the down draft worked very good from first flight but the oil cooling was not good until adding the second 9 row cooler. good luck on the first flight .

this may be helpful in getting a ride in a canard. don't start out the conversation with your canard is nice but it is the next best thing to an RV . everyone that counts already knows the canards fly way better than RVs.

they are going to have to leave off the wheel pants though. I can't be commuting in LA without everyone being able to see I have a set of those chrome wagon wheels on my Ride. what about the sound system? how about wing mounted Subs

what is the reason that they put two engines on an airplane?

second throttle is simple. you mount the two throttle levers any where you want in the aircraft. run cable from each to the linkage arm on the fuel servo. connect both to the same point. remove the throttle hold friction device from the back throttle lever. when one moves the other moves with it.

air planes don't fly for long with no power. adding a supercharger to that engine would be an after market set up, nothing Lycoming ever did. playing with an experimental engine and test flying over houses is not a good idea. I doubt the aircraft was out of CG. but it is possible as the just added a supercharger to the rear. he was ex military pilot so I would think he was of average weight. canard aircraft when slowed do not stall, the canard stalls first and the aircraft sink rate goes up. does seem strange that an experienced pilot would not aim for a street instead of a house.

10 1/8" if you need it exact I can measure it today it fits on a 10" bulkhead

this is not entirely true the vari ez was designed with trailering in mind and there were some who did this back in the day. Burt did design it to be under the hiway width limit. when Burt first starting selling plans this was talked about at the saturday sales pitch at Mojave. it does take about an hour and a half to get it rigged and ready to fly but it does take some help and three people is best. the aileron and elevator tubes have a slip joint with a clevis pin and cotter pin that is easy to assemble as does the rudder cable. the wing has a male /female joint and tapered bushings and two bolts on each. the canard is held on with two bolts and two alignment pins there was a guy at chino that had all the rigging equipment so he could do it by himself. there was one in Canada that would trailer it to the airport a the start of the summer and leave it at the airport all summer tied down outside and took it home for the winter. the hardware is similar to what some sailplanes use and it done all the time in the glider community. even though it is possible most of the vari owner do not trailer their aircraft. they find having it ready to go at the airport preferable. heres a link for a vari ez trailer for sale. http://www.fri-prod-dev.com/plane/addtnl.html

Chrissi, I am not using auto fuel and I have not done any research on the compatible resins. Has it been determined what resins are good and which ones not to use?

I don't want to add any more grief to to your situation but why go back to the Jeffco coating. if you are going to do a layup on the entire tank why not just use a wet layup of a structural resin or a geffco laminating resin that is compatible with the fuel that you are planing to use. any time you add a coating over cured resin there is a chance of peeling. in the long ez/ cozy type constrution the inside of the tank is a 2 ply layup that is left a bit wet and that is it. some have added a third ply of very close weave light cloth to help hold the resin in place until cure. some have used cabosil in the resin to thinken it and elininate pin holes.

hope that did not hurt your prop or wheel pants. yes that is what happens. the pilot should always stand by the as the passengers get out. the passengers don't ever think this can happen. most don't know about the W&B of a cozy. I have seen this happen to a cozy IV when the co pilot who owns a cozy 3, jumped off the side even with the nose gear half retracted. the spring of the gear launched it over backwards as he jumped off.

that might be hard to prove on the second one. the wing was riped off but there was no fuel spill. there is no fuel left to test for contaminates. he burned it all up trying to get to the airport. The news report says the experianced pilot thought he ran out of fuel. AS the pilot aren't you suppose to know how much fuel you have. so he knew that he was out of fuel.

wait until there is an LSA accident and the media gets a hold of the drivers license only thing with only 7 hours of pilot training in a newly build LSA. still don't agree with the LSA thing. you need a medical to fly a plane but if you fly this type plane you don't. are they not both planes that could crash into a house and cause a fire and kill people on the ground.

he did slightly mention training aircraft. but he did say that that experimentals were very high risk because it was logical that they would be, he had no stats to back this up. why when I read the accident reports there are always at least 5 to one certified to experimental accidents. if we are 15% of the accidents then who is causing the other 85%. the other stat we don't see is number of accidents by builders vs. buyers of experimentals. The more money then brains owners are not good for our hobby. the other one is the guy that knows that his aircraft type is not the best designed aircraft with a high accident rate and still he has to have one. we have a guy at chino that has bought three Q2s in the last 3 years and crashed all three on take off. he is a retired airline pilot with money to burn and his comment was that he is lucky that he was flying a Q2 because it was one of the safest aircraft ever designed and that is why he survived the crashes. being an airline pilot you would think he would know that you are suppose to fly them not crash them. he's is currently looking for his forth. if he keeps this up he will remove all the Q2s from the world. and the world will be a safer place indeed.

the certificate that was issued in 2002 was a registration certificate this is not an airworthiness certificate, and does not mean that the aircraft was signed off for flight at that time. you are required to register it in advance of applying for the airworthiness certificate.

I would like to know why was the aircraft was flown from three airports in only 5 hours of flight. it may be that they had switched the phase one airport of operation during the 5 hours but I doubt it. I have seen the FAA give phase one restrictions to some Lancair owners that did not include there route of flight to the test area and allowed them to land at other airports. this type of test operation can only end up bad. I do not want to see the FAA telling us which airport we can use our experimental aircraft. one way to prevent this is to use some common sense and as the pilot of a low time aircraft not operate in high risk areas as N Las Vegas. Why would you want to take off and fly over houses at 300 feet in an experimental with only 5 hours? seems the pilot did not act responsibly in this case and never gave any consideration to the what if of operating a new plane.

You are allowed to be over a populated area during takeoff and landing. if only 5 hours then he should have been taking off to go to his assigned test area. It is the FAA that assigns the test area and designates which airports can be used to complete the phase one testing.

if he is going to land that way he may need to carry a spare or two. or rethink the way he lands the plane. maybe a safety cable like the race cars use to keep the tire with the plane.

it will work in either position. mine are at about have way up in front of the shear web. they were put in the foam in front of the shear web, that way you do not have to deal with them being under the skin layup. cut a slot in the foam with a hacksaw blade 1/2" deep and slip the foil tape antenna in the slot. a little 5 minute to hold it in and then install the airfoil leading edge

Still don't know who it is, very sad tho. but there a lot of experts on what an experimental ishttp://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=8885888&nav=menu102_2

Install it the way the Roncz plans says. how do you know what the angle of incidence is? the only line you are given in the plans is a level line to use for building. the canard level line should be level to the longerons. if you install the roncz with less incidence it will fly but the take off will be longer. at lower incidence it will need faster airspeed to get enough lift to take off.

raising the rear seat would help some but it is the strakes the get in the way also. we tried to land a long ez from the rear seat and it was very tough even for my old hanger mate who had some 900 hrs. in a long ez and was a stunt pilot. he did manage to do it but said he was not going to do that ever again. he landed into a 8 kts. head wind and once on the ground the pilot up front used the brakes to stop. in the right conditions the rudders are not needed to land. I have made many landings and never had to touch the rudders, only the brakes to stop. what many would be canard pilot don't understand is that the rudders in a canard make the plane react a bit different then the spam cans. while in level cruse flight step on a aileron and the plane will bank, use a rudder and the plane banks. almost the same. to get the rudders to yaw the plane requires rudder and opposite aileron.

moving the seat and panel back is a lot easier then you think. Think about taking the long ez or cozy IV plans and scaling them up 10%. there is a plane at chino that is a long ez that is scaled up 25%. it has a small side by side seating cockpit and a huge back seat area almost 6' long. the plane is in flight test phase one now and we are finding some very interesting flight characteristics. with a light wing loading it takes off and lands a lot slower but has not been tested over 150 kts at this time. the SQ2000 was a kit with molded fuselage so there are no plans to build it from scratch.