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mcjon77

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  1. Great info guys! Waiter, at 17,5000ft on a 75or 80 degree day isn't it 25 or 30 degrees at that altitude? How do you deal with the cold for such a long period of time?
  2. $250,000!! For an LSA?! It looks nice, but not $250,000 nice. For less than half that, you can probably get a Searey SLSA. The wings don't fold, but I am pretty sure that with the extra $125,000 you save that you can afford to rent a hangar.
  3. Hi guys, One of the things that has always impressed me and inspires me is reading the trip reports that are posted on the net, and especially on ez.org. That leads to my two questions: 1) What is the most time you have spent flying your canard in a single day? When planing for these long cross countries, what are your personal hourly limits? 2) What is the most time (not distance) you have spent in the air non-stop? I know Dick Ruttan and Mike Melville must have flown their Long-ezs for 12+ hours at a time, but I am more interested in when mere mortals like the rest of us can do. I have always wanted to know how long the average canardian can last before you need to land for fuel/rest/potty break. Does your canard have bigger tanks than you? Thanks for your help and info.
  4. Is it me, or does that cowling make it look like the plane is smiling?
  5. The plans were listed for $475 opening bid with a $575 "buy it now" price. What would be the benefit of doing that when one could go the Open EZ/Terf CD route or just shell out $500 and buy some Cozy plans? If he did not place any minimum bid, I wonder how much they would have sold for.
  6. I've heard the shoulder width issue mentioned before. Just how wide is the long-ez at the shoulders?
  7. So far, the person Mark mentioned above, and Mike Bowden with his twin engine long ez are the only 2 people I have heard of who were able to make a pusher version of ANY of the Jabiru engines work without overheating (excluding ultralight type aircrafft like titan tornados where the engine sits out in the open, with no cowling, exposed to the air). I know of several builders and more than one LSA manufacturer who gave up on trying to get that engine to keep cool as a pusher.
  8. Does anyone have an idea what the maximum pilot weight is for a long-ez, and still remain in CG. For this example, lets assume it has an O-320. Jon
  9. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "Xtra EZ". It is a modified cozy MKIV with an IO-540 velocity retracts and staggered seating. There are only 2 seats, as opposed to 3 in the stagger-ez. It won reserve grand champion ant OSH this year. Here are some pics.
  10. I'm sure most of us were in the same position of trying to chose which airplane to build. Here is a method that I found REALLY helpful in making the decision. Make a chart with 4 columns. The first column is NEED. Under this column write down all the things your airplane MUST HAVE for you to build it. For some people, they absolutely must have 4 seats. For me, I only needed 1. However, I needed a cruise speed of AT LEAST 100kt. Anything less, and it wasn't worth building. The second column is REALLY WANT These are things that are almost needs, but you would sacrafice one or two in exchange for something else. They aren't absolute deal breakers, like the things in the needs column. For example, two of my REALLY WANT items were 2 seats and 125kt cruise. I could do without them, but given the choice, I would be willing to pay a bit extra for the features, as long as I could afford them. The third column is WANT. Things that I would like, but none of them are really necessary. They are obviously less important than REALLY WANT The fourth colum is NICE TO HAVE Certainly not critical, but some nice extras. This is more of a wish list than anything. For my list, I had things like 4 seats, STOL, aerobatics, 200kts cruise. Also, keep in mind, it is OK if something in one column conflicts with something in another. You are, in all likelyhood, not going to get everything on all columns in a single plane. Also, once you start building, you may find that somethings just are not important to you. thats fine. Once you have this list, you then look at your budget, both in terms of money and time. From there, look at what planes fit you budget and how they stack up on your columns. You really don't want to spend a bunch of time building a plane that you can't afford to own/fly/maintain. I found that this method really helped clear the air as far as what airplanes fit my needs and which ones did not. As an example, I was looking hard at a Just Aircraft Highlander. The plane is a STOL monster, and there are videos of guys doing all kinds of back country flying that looked cool. When I compared the plane to my columns, I realized it was completely wrong for me. I want to do long cross countries and that plane can barely reach 87kts. The Backcountry stuff was cool, but living in Illinois, I would have very little use for it. Also, being realistic on the budget helped me greatly. The one guy that I absolutely DID NOT want to become was the guy who builds his dream plane but must sell it because he can't afford it. I know of several guys like that. One other thing. As Budd Davisson says, don't be a pioneer when it comes to homebuilts. Build something that has a good track record (like a cozy or long-ez or even an RV). One of the planes I was looking at looked great. The only problem with it is that only the prototype had been built. In effect, I would be the guinea pig, figuring out all of the problems with the construction manual (NO first edition construction manual is perfect/error free). By building something that already has a history, not only do you get a more realistic understanding of the airplanes performance, most of the problems you will have in the build have already been experienced by someone else, someone who found a solution. I problem that may have taken the first builder weeks or months to solve, you will have a solution in minutes or hours after reading what he did. In a lot of cases, those problems no longer exist in later editions of the kits/plans. Hope this helps, Jon
  11. mcjon77

    Berkut Plans

    So, just so I understand this. If one has the berkut plans AND the long-ez/Open-ez plans, one can build a Berkut? If so, that would be EXTREMELY COOL!
  12. From what I understand, the Lycoming deal (along with the competing offer by continental) fell through due to antitrust concerns. Basically DOJ started investigating the deal on the theory that Lycoming buying what is essentially it's competitor would lower competition in the marketplace too much. http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2009/090305superior.html Jon McDonald
  13. Can you be a little more vague please? If you are talking about fuel capacity, my estimate is that a twin of this size would be able to carry between 82-88 gal. fuel burn should be around 13-13.5 gph at 75% power for the two engines. Even taking the low end of the fuel capacity with the high end of the fuel burn, we're still looking at 6 hours. Minus 1 hour for reserves, leaves us with 5 hours of fuel. What was the point you were trying to make about fuel?
  14. Adrian, I remember your post from before, but I couldn't find it. As you did, I also compared the numbers of a 75% defiant with that of a cozy and came to the same conclusion. The wing loading seams lower than the cozy as well. Also, the new Jabirus are actually producing closer to 127hp. In addition, 2 Jabiru 3300s with constant speed props still weigh the same or less than 1 IO-540 with prop that have been put on several cozys already. I remember a Long EZ with twin Jabiru 2200s on the back (Mike Bowden's?) that was supposedly an underperformer. It seemed to suffer from the same problems that Chris Heintz's Zeniar Gemini did. In the case of the Zenair Gemini, Hientz found that he could not maintain enough altitude on a single engine. However, back when both of these twins were designed, they were using fixed pitch props, which could not be feathered. Furthermore, the early 2200s are suspected (at least among the Sonex guys who have flown them) of not producing the rated 80hp. Now there are at least 3 companies that make featherable propellers for the Jabiru and rotax line of engines. The adjustable props weigh 15-25lbs. Combine that with the 120-127hp Jabiru 3300 and I think we have a winner. The most obvious question is why go for a twin. I understand the pitfalls to a twin vs. single. I spend a lot of time in Central America, mostly Costa Rica. A twin would allow me to confidently fly over water and turn a 2-3 day trip into a 1 day trip. The overland route is 50% longer than the over water route. The only singles that I know which could make the trip in 1 day are the Glasair III, the Lancair Legacy, and the Lancair IV. However, if I can get even close to the reported performance numbers of the defiant, I can make the trip in 1 day. Also, the plane would be cool.
  15. Hi guys, I have heard it mentioned before about building a smaller scale defiant, with Rotax or Jabiru engines. I am considering building a .91 scale defiant (.91Width*.91Length*.91Height = .75 total size and weight). Right now it is just in the pipe dream stage (still working on building my Sonex). The idea keeps sticking in my mind, and I want to know if there is something I am missing that would make this project less doable than I think. Essentially, I am wondering what the gotchas are of my plan. Before starting I would tranfer all of the plans into CAD to scale them to the proper sizing. The deminsions (Length, Width, Height) of the plane would be 91% of the original defiant. This would create a plane that is .75% of the original defiant's size and weight. I would use Jabiru 3300 (120-127 hp) engines with electric constant speed props. Even with the props, the engines will be 75% or less of the weight of the original 0-320s . In the end, the plane would have the same or better wing loading and power loading as the original defiant. Also all of the scaling down would be in equal proportions, so I cannot see how it would significantly change the aerodynamics of the plane. The biggest gotcha I see is that the defiant was designed for the lycoming engine, and I would have to not only design my own mounts, I probably also have to modify the baffling system for the engine. That doesn't seem so insurmountable. Am I missing something as to why this would not be doable? Jon McDonald
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