Lynn Erickson

No, I believe had been flying with the CS prop for some time before these mods. I know he had it when he did the lower winglet removal mod, that did very little for speed. DD cooling should be less drag unless he has more inlet then he needs. Most of all the speed mods have a much bigger effect at low altitudes where most ez's don't fly much. from a clean stock plans ez to a full race clean machine , if you see 10 knots at low altitude you are doing go. the biggest differences are good wheel pants and the right prop for the altitude that you want to go fastest at.

Thats the same thing that John Graves said after he had Steve Drybread put in the retracts. he spent $ 15,000 and said he had to look very hard at the airspeed indicator to find 5 knots of increase. After all the great work you did on yours I hope you do find more speed then that.

Either one could take longer to complete.

I had no bias toward any deign when I started. looked a many designs, but over the years you see things happen and you notice trends with certain aircraft. the trend I have seen with the Q2 is they take just as long to build as most other aircraft and many are never finished. of the ones that do get finished most do not fly much. many who have built a Q2 did so because they thought it would be a lesser expensive aircraft to build and be faster to build. what they thought and what they experienced where two different things. many of the Q2 owners I know tell of all the testing and reworking of the aircraft to get to be a good flyer and dependable. of the builders that still have their Q2's many of them still have a long list of things they need to change. three of the Q2 owners I know now have other aircraft. what do they have, a long, a cozy 3 and a dragonfly. many owners just stopped trying to make it a good aircraft, got tired of all the failures or scared out of the sky. am I biased against the Q2 well, yes, but it is for good reason. why spend all that time and money to build a design that has a track record of not being very successful. when there are so many designs that you could build that have a good track record. also why spend 5+ years and $ 25,000 to build a plane that might be worth $ 10,000 when you are done. some will say because I want to build my own, and thats fine, but there is a reason that they are only worth $ 10,000 when they are flying. they perform like a plane that cost only $ 10,000.

why would sand blasting leave an inclusion and sanding with paper not? they are the same material except the sand paper has a binder (Glue) that does get on the surface. I used both and it doesn't seem to have an effect on the way mine flies.

I did all that and it made no difference in take off length. it took longer to accelerate to take off speed, more drag during the roll. the best way for me is to keep it all low drag and until you get the speed and then rotate. if you try to pull it off early you might get it off the ground a few feet shorter but you might not make the fence. it will just hang there in ground effect until you put the nose down to gain some speed so you can climb.

yes you can feel it, the take off is improved with the CS prop by about 25% but top end suffers. the CS props are not set up with the same twist and airfoil so they are not optimized for top end and on an EZ they loose about 10 KTS. I have flown a couple of EZ both with new and old styles of MT blades and on the same plane with fixed pitch and they both fell short on top speed with the CS prop.

changing the gear length will not change the angle of incidence only the angle of attack while on the ground. this will have no effect on stall. to change the incidence of the wing or canard you would have to change the angle relative to the fuselage

the reason for the good builder support is there are many builders that have completed aircraft and they can fly them. the Q2 is lacking the builder support because if one is completed and flown it is not long before the builder has sold the aircraft before some one gets hurt. they are just not good safe aircraft. they look good on paper but just are not that good of a design. if it was a good design don't you think there would be a few more flying or still flying. and to build one with the gear on the canard well, is just not smart. if you are set on this type of aircraft I would look at the dragonfly, it has way better flight characteristics. still some what of a handful on landing, even though the speed is less then an Ez, most of the Dragonflys get flown. why? because they don't tend to scare the hell out of their owners quite as often as the Q2. do your homework. talk to some owner/ fliers of both and ask them how much they fly them and how many times they have had a close one. why do you think there are so many for sale that did fly but the owner decided to sell the aircraft and engine separate? They know if they sell it to someone that they will get hurt. If you do your homework and still decide on this aircraft, I will say have fun building and good luck on the flying thing.

The forward side of spar is OK. The aft side of spar ( firewall side ) NO holes, this is the shear web The top or bottom of spar from the fire wall to 3" forward NO, this is the spar caps

it is the distance from the cowl that needs to be at least 3" but more is better on the MT CS prop there is a small extension built into the prop hub. you could use another prop extension with the CS prop but because the CS prop is very heavy it would have an effect on W&B. most of the O-320 ezs use a 6" extension and some up to 8". On the 360s and 540s most use 8" extension. Some like myself and Dick Rutan use a 9" extension.

and so what is the moral of the story? you left us hanging

the lamb tire would fit but the Infinity gear was suppose to allow the use of the larger tire for rough landing strips.

the michelins are the smallest 5x5 aircraft tire I have found. let us know if you find a smaller one. we had the same problem on our Glasair I but the michelins are just small enough to make a difference

there are two sizes of wheel wells from infinity the early ones where a bit to small tire diameter did not seem to change with pressure but take off roll did. I use DOT 5 not that red fire starter fluid, may have something to do with expansion. what would make it expand ? we thought about latent heat expansion. have looked for something heating up the system during flight but it seems that everything gets colder at altitude, even does it in winter. don't see much change until about the 30 minute mark and then it seems to rise in the next 30 minutes

waiter, seems you have it covered and well thought out. on the infinity gear we had to increase the up pressure to 1200#, the gear would come out under G load at 650. on my gear the up pressure switch is set at 1600#. the pump pressure relief is set to 1650#. the one strange thing I see is that the up pressure increases slowly during a 30 minute flight, up to 2000# with the pump off. still don't know where the increase of pressure is coming from.

may be the air loads are pushing it back. all things retract work different in the airwe had a problem where the strut would compress but by the time the gear got raised the pressure in the strut would bleed off allowing the strut to extend just enough for the gear to hang on the edge of the wheel well. it always worked on the ground but intermittent problem in the air. also if the tires are still spinning when it is going into the well it could hang and needs to be recycled. stepping on brakes just before retraction seems to help. Waiter, do you have pressure gauge on the up and down? I would like to know if you see a increase in the up pressure during a flight without the pump coming on.

Which long ez was used to test the pulse jet engine with the big under belly pod.

make a copy of them. if you have that much already done all you will need is the copy to complete the project. many builders have made copys to keep in the shop so they wont destroy the originals.

Congrats, thats great. yes it is to cool.

The best would be to get someone that has built and flown a vari eze to give it a look. if you have not done the glass work on an ez then you won't know what you are looking at even if you know where to look. there is no way to tell what is inside the layup or if all the layups are there. try to get some background on the builder, what type of craftsmen was he, a perfectionist or a duct tape guy. was he an inventor or know it all, then look out, but if he was a good craftsmen and followed the plans, it will show and a experienced builder will most likely be able to tell

I don't want to turn Waiters thread into a gear pissing match. i do know. we pulled out 105 lb. of stuff out of the aero canard and the spar lay ups are still in there. as for the true weights, there are some that can say they have been there and done that and the new builders that will find out. if the gear weights 74 lb. for the pump and legs. you can add at least another 35 lb. for the controller, hydraulic lines, solenoids, oil, hoses, switches, emergency down system, hardware, extra glass for the wheel wells, extra structure and gear doors, bigger wheels, bigger brakes and bigger tires. as Waiter's weights show, when you make mods the weights add up faster then you can count them.

It is going to be interesting to see the new performance figures. this is one of the few plane to get the mods after it had flown many hours and has some old numbers to compare with. The gear will make the biggest difference, it will hurt the climb rate the most but still should be a good performer with the CS prop and the extra 10 HP from the FI. Thats a lot for the oil heater but worth it where you are living now. I tell new builders to figure 100 lb. increase for the retract gear but most of them always try to tell me it will only be 40. This helps clear up the 40 lb. myth. top speed should be a bit better. the gear should make 10 MPH difference and the extra weight should not make much difference at top speed. the CS prop will slow down the top speed over the fixed pitch prop. I think you will feel the weight in the stick but you won't really care because it is flying again. it is what it is, no going back now so enjoy the flying and have a safe test session.

Carrier landings

white engine mounts make it easier to spot cracks.