Allen C

Great videos! I was just in Huntsville Wed and was AMAZED by the heat. Hope you have some fantastic vents in your bird. I have a few videos up as well on youtube. Hope you like them.

Hope to see a few of you there.The link is down, but you can look for Virginia Festival of Flight.

Drew, What was your flight time down and back?

Had to miss it due to finals, although my hangermate and his wife went and said that they didn't see as many Canards as they anticipated. I'll be interested to hear some fist hand reports. Drew, you there?

Any photos of the hinged window?

Has anybody placed an eyeball vent in the same place as the gear site window. Is there enough positive airflow into the gear well for a vent to function?

Drew, Will you and the family be camping or staying in a hotel? As things stand, if Kris decides not to go, I will head down to Huntsville and pick up my friend Scott and take him along. We will be meeting Jim and Peggy Dall at LAL (they were in the Piper when we went to Tazwell last year.)

Who is going this year? We are making plans to depart Roanoke Va (KROA), but we have not nailed the departure date down just yet.

Found on another board. ___________________________________________________ 'Twas the night before Christmas, and out on the ramp, Not an airplane was stirring, not even a Champ. The aircraft were fastened to tie downs with care, In hopes that come morning, they all would be there. The fuel trucks were nestled, all snug in their spots, With gusts from two-forty at 39 knots. I slumped at the fuel desk, now finally caught up, And settled down comfortably, resting my butt. When the radio lit up with noise and with chatter, I turned up the scanner to see what was the matter. A voice clearly heard over static and snow, Called for clearance to land at the airport below. He barked his transmission so lively and quick, I'd have sworn that the call sign he used was "St. Nick." I ran to the panel to turn up the lights, The better to welcome this magical flight. He called his position, no room for denial, "St. Nicholas One, turnin' left onto final." And what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a Rutan-built sleigh, with eight Rotax reindeer! With vectors to final, down the glideslope he came, As he passed all the fixes, he called them by name: "Now Ringo! Now Tolga! Now Trini and Bacun! On Comet! On Cupid!" What pills was he takin'? While controllers were sittin', and scratchin' their head, They phoned to my office, and I heard it with dread, The message they left was both urgent and dour: "When Santa pulls in, have him please call the tower." He landed like silk, with the sled runners sparking, Then I heard "Left at Charlie," and "Taxi to parking." He slowed to a taxi, turned off of three-oh And stopped on the ramp with a "Ho, ho-ho-ho..." He stepped out of the sleigh, but before he could talk, I ran out to meet him with my best set of chocks. His red helmet and goggles were covered with frost And his beard was all blackened from reindeer exhaust. His breath smelled like peppermint, gone slightly stale, And he puffed on a pipe, but he didn't inhale. His cheeks were all rosy and jiggled like jelly, His boots were as black as a cropduster's belly. He was chubby and plump, in his suit of bright red, And he asked me to "fill it, with hundred low-lead." He came dashing in from the snow-covered pump, I knew he was anxious for drainin' the sump. I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work, And I filled up the sleigh, but I spilled like a jerk. He came out of the restroom, and sighed in relief, Then he picked up a phone for a Flight Service brief. And I thought as he silently scribed in his log, These reindeer could land in an eight-mile fog. He completed his pre-flight, from the front to the rear, Then he put on his headset, and I heard him yell, "Clear!" And laying a finger on his push-to-talk, He called up the tower for clearance and squawk. "Take taxiway Charlie, the southbound direction, Turn right three-two-zero at pilot's discretion" He sped down the runway, the best of the best, "Your traffic's a Grumman, inbound from the west." Then I heard him proclaim, as he climbed thru the night, "Merry Christmas to all! I have traffic in sight."

Initially I was reluctant to post to this thread. As you can see from my post count my modus is to listen more than talk, and this topic in particular inevitably decays to nothing short of a simple pissing match. Aerobatics are a religion indeed. As a public service, and as an exercise in time management, I have posted a link to another dead horse that was been continuously flogged since January 2004, with no signs of being allowed to rest in peace. (This may even be a record for the longest flogging of a thread, which serves to show just how heated this topic is within the community.) Since your time is undoubtedly extraordinarily valuable, and the odds are exceptionally high that you may very well not have much of it remaining, I will paraphrase for you: 1. Simple question asked 2. Simple question answered 3. Aerobatic authoritarians emerge 4. Urine flows 5. Two geeks much brighter than I hash out the mathematics of the maneuvers. (One of whom is an M.I.T. engineering graduate currently working at Scaled giving him access to the designer of this aircraft line, and built his own Cozy. It is a personal decision to be sure, but many people listen when this man talks. I do. If Burt puts trust in this man’s ability to design SpaceShip 2, you may wish to consider what this man has to say. ) Since you obviously place a great deal of emphasis on the opinions of those who actually fly aerobatics in these planes, and have had copious amounts of training in your particular denomination, I would suggest you begin at post #70 by Wayne Hicks. http://www.canardzone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=644&page=5&highlight=Aerobatics Here you will read the firsthand accounts of aerobatic flying from Tom Staggs. He is a former Navy pilot that flew air shows in his Long-Ez during the 90’s. While he may not be the person that beat Wayne Handley in his first competition and currently teaches upset training to corporate pilots, he does teach Air Force test pilots at Edwards in his Long-Ez. I leave it to you to decide the merit of his credentials. On a more personal note, I would like to take a moment to say thank you for the incredible contribution you are about to make to the canard community. Mere mortals would throttle back a bit when presented with such overwhelming evidence, but I get the impression that you are no quitter. And while your actions may be perceived as having a negative impact on the surviving Long-Ez communities insurance premiums’, I would argue that exploring the extreme edges of the flight envelope comes at a cost; one that many of us more timid (read boring) types are just not brave enough to explore ourselves. I just thought you should hear it while you are still with us. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Miss type on my part. Entry was ~15 (about one five) degrees as this entry allowed for a constant gental G loading on the plane rather than load the airframe at either end of the maneuver. "Tad bit" of rudder would be a generalization seeing that I am not certain of the exact pressure being applied; nor did I think that stating one should attempt to press the rudder peddle through the paint seemed to convey the finesse of these maneuvers. The reference to the video is so that you can see for yourself what the roll rate of this aircraft looks like at 0 (zero) risk to oneself. (I.e. no risk of ridiculously performing a maneuver in a manner that others may find grievously offensive) Certainly, my last intention was to somehow offend a long-standing student of the guy that beat Wayne Handley in his first competition. Kevin, Your point is well taken. I am sorry for your loss.

Just took a look at some video I shot a while back. A roll to the left, 5 degrees nose up on the entry indicating about ~140kts or so gave a 360 degree roll at ~4 seconds. That was with a tad bit of left rudder kicked in to help things along, and positive G's throughout. There is also a video on youtube already shot by the GIB while doing some rolls. Watch it a few times and you will get a feel for the planes rate of roll. It's not pretty. The nose really comes through the roll when inverted as you try to keep positive G's. If you push negative while inverted in an attempt to keep the nose close to the horizon you introduce some new problems if you are not injected.

There are not a lot of canard simulators out there, and I have flown this one extensively. The guys at Alpha asked that I play with it while it was in beta testing. They wanted to release it as a game so they only wanted to approximate the flight characteristics. Their emphasis was to test the market, and create a realistic and fully functional panel. The designers intended to submit it for an award for their design of the instrument panel. The actual flight model used for this was a modified form of an already existing code. They did not want to dedicate the time and energy to make this hyper-realistic. Before I bought my plane, I logged many hours in MS Flight Sim in a Long-Ez that I found on the web. While the flight characteristics may be off, it does not mean that the simulator is not useful. I would suggest it only for the sight picture. In my experience, flying the real thing is MUCH easier than the sim. It is also much more fun! I still fly my sim to stay frosty with my emergency checklists. Flight sim 10 has an ability to set up random failures. I have mine set for random instrument failures to occur at random times. Again, the sim is great for sight picture so I also use to practice landing at unfamiliar airports that I will be going into. Since you have the sim already, you can fly my plane. Mine is the one with the orange paint. N701DS. They used my plane as the model for the sim. Good luck. Allen