Voidhawk9

Not sure why a person would do this. A LOT of extra work for no real increase in safety or reliability (single vs twin safety statistics are clear). The Aeromomentum engines are interesting though, I will watch the AM20T with interest (260hp at o-360 weight).

2" between a cruise and climb prop is quite small. I suppose it might vary with the difference in speed between cruise and climb too.

First of all, I'm a bit of a control freak... I built my epoxy hot-box as a large unit (on wheels!) with three compartments. The top compartment has its own door, and holds the dispensing bottles (I use capped sauce bottles, and measure on a digital scale) and the containers holding flox, microballoons, etc. I figure keeping the micro or flox warm as well would not drop the temperature of the mix, ensuring lower viscosity and lighter micro mixes. Small difference, perhaps, but I have space, so why not? The compartment below that is open to the hot compartment above (holes in opposite corners of the top shelf) that is large enough to hold 20kg of resin and 5kg of hardener so that the 'bulk' epoxy is kept warm to avoid crystallization issues over winter. The final compartment at the bottom is not open to the heated area above, but is still insulated. I now keep containers of a different resin and hardener in here (fast hardener, and a resin more suitable for sanding). While not kept as warm as the compartments above, the insulation will still protect it from the daily extremes of temperature in my current uninsulated workshop. The top of the unit happens to be ideally sized to hold an open set of Aerocanard plans! I installed an incandescent light bulb as a heat source, per the traditional method, at the top of the right-rear of the MIDDLE compartment. Above it is a hole, approx 2"x3". There is a hold the same size in the opposite corner of the shelf. This creates a gentle convection, keeping the air in the top compartment warm, and the middle compartment almost as warm. It should also reduce the 'hot-spot' next to the heat source, which also has a shield between it and the epoxy containers. I wired the light bulb to a temperature controller mounted in the front of the unit. I got this off Ebay quite inexpensively . It is a little awkward to wire, but not too difficult. It switches the light OFF once the selected temperature is reached, and turns it back ON once the temperature drops 1deg below the selected temperature. The temperature probe hangs from the top of the topmost compartment. Thus the epoxy bottles are kept within 1 or 2 degrees of the temperature I want at all times, all year round. The downside is the light bulb gets cycled on and off every 20 minutes or so, and will blow after only 2 - 3 months. This didn't bother me particularly, the blubs are inexpensive. But now incandescent bulbs are getting harder to find! I looked at the reptile heaters that have been suggested. They could work, but cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, or would not easily fit where I need it to. I found and purchased this 100w ceramic heater, also on Ebay . It is almost the perfect size to mount under the hole in the top shelf, where the light bulb once was. It works great, and hopefully will be far more durable than a light bulb (not that it is impossible to build a durable incandescent bulb, but then you would never buy new ones!). It has been operating for about a week, and works at least as well as the light blub did before. Note that the linked parts a 220v. If you decide to create a similar setup, be sure to get one matching the voltage supply in your country!

Hi Joe, Phillip Johnson is in Southern Ontario and has a very nice Cozy. http://www.canardaviation.com/PhillipJohnson/ I wouldn't expose my wife and kids to the fumes too much, epoxy is toxic and over-exposure can be a problem in some cases. Building in a basement shouldn't be a problem. Perhaps not in the living room next to your kids though. I'm building in winter here in New Zealand now, using a bit of electric heat to help things along - it can be done! I have a heat tent big enough for the fuselage tub that I can cure parts in also. A wooden frame that I can hang a tarp over and clip around the edges to contain the heat.

Can't argue with someone who has done it, but I've found the cabinet to be invaluable, and not a big project to do. But I overcomplicate things.

I've learned this myself. Locking wheels (at least 2 of 4) makes it easy to keep them in place, too. I've done it for one workbench and my mobile glass roll holder (for rolling glass off the roll directly onto parts, you see). I put 2 wheels on my free-standing glass cabinet so that it can be tilted and rolled around. Unfortunately, I made the thing much too heavy, making that impractical!

I have learned, if you want something done properly, do it yourself! More than once I've sent something out to be done professionally only to have to re-work it myself after getting it back. Of course, that isn't always practical. It also seems that Lycs perform quite inconsistently - some seem to run well almost forever, others have issues from day one. Perhaps something to do with utilization in some cases - I've flown a lot of hours on O-320s and -360s in flight schools, they were generally consistent with very high utilization. Though even then some were better than others under identical use. I presume your oil consumption is 3.5 QUARTS per hour - otherwise, you'd be out of oil in about 2hrs at 3.5gph, and I'd suggest looking for a large hole somewhere.

At the top aft corner of my seatback, I have a lovely flox corner creating a nearly perfect edge (if I do say so myself). However, this edge is quite sharp! Useful perhaps if there is ever the need to slice things (fingers?) in flight, but rather reminiscent of auto interiors before it was realized they were carving people up in accidents. Has anyone made a change here that worked well? I am about to fit the shoulder support and am considering creating a small foam 'rounding' of this corner that the shoulder support outside layup could wrap over. It would allow the seatbelt reinforcement to wrap easily too, and avoid a potentially harmful edge. I could sand the corner, but it would be very small radius if I didn't want to destroy the flox corner there.

I'm happy to contribute, and hopefully, help stimulate some more life in the forums!

Thanks, I wasn't certain exactly where the topic should go, so I made a 'best guess'. Yes, my current shop is far from ideal. I could wait until I have a better one (another year or two), or make the best of what I have and build anyway. I choose the latter!

A recent story of this intrepid builder getting 'caught out' during a critical layup. It is winter here in the southern hemisphere. I finally had a warm(ish) sunny day to layup the remaining side of my 4-place tub. Most smaller parts I can cure in a heat-tent that I attach to my workbench, so I can and do build all-year round, though not as much in winter (the heat tent doesn't fit the builder inside!), however, my tub is on the rotisserie at the moment. I am building in a non-insulted metal garage that has great sun exposure, so it warms up nicely in there by mid-day on sunny days in winter (and will give a mild post-cure to parts and persons in summer!). Almost everything was ready to go in anticipation of good weather, so I set up electric heat to warm parts and materials in advance, and I got to work as soon as the garage warmed up in the sun All was going well: 3 layers of uni overall, three strips of uni lapping up onto the upper longeron, then the final layups, the engine mount reinforcements that wrap around onto the side from the firewall. I took a moment to enjoy the view of the pretty colours of the sunset out of my garage windows. Turns out it was the shortest day, so light faded early, and the temperature began to fall. No problem, I have good electric lighting and some electric heat for overall warming and a hair-dryer for applying heat on small areas to keep the resin / glass ratio favourable (I think of this as the John Slade method, as I learned it from his builder log. He is gone now, but he is not forgotten, and his build log continues to inspire and help!). Then the lights went out. Now, losing power on this property happens every few weeks, the wiring and supply equipment on this (rented) property, according to an electrician, is 'barely adequate', and the master circuit breaker pops whenever the timing aligns between such things as the fridge or freezers coming on at the same moment as there is already a high load from the hot water, or whatever. I have invested in a UPS for my computer to avoid loss of work and stress on components due to the frequency of this occurrence! Resetting the main breaker solves the problem. So I went inside to do just that. But the breaker wasn't tripped. Power was out for the entire neighbourhood! Turns out some irresponsible maniac in a car had cut a power pole nearby in half, smashed a parked car, and knocked an elderly gentleman off his electric mobility scooter (he wasn't injured, by some miracle!). They managed this on a straight section of road in a residential area... With the sun down there wasn't enough light to see, but I set up a flashlight on a bench aimed at my layup and brought in my 6-year old son to hold another from a good angle so that I could see to complete the important reinforcement layups. The rapidly cooling temperatures made the epoxy thicken quickly, which wasn't ideal, but I got the layups completed as best I could in the circumstances. Once the power came back on a few hours later, I went out and applied heat with the hair-dryer and squeegeed the layups again, getting a fair amount of excess epoxy removed before it had a chance to cure. The layups all turned out well (better than the other side... the experience of doing the other side previously helps noticeably at this level of builder experience!). I hadn't considered the possibility of this sort of outage occurring at a critical time. Probably these reinforcing layups could be done later (as they are for the inside ones), but it would not be ideal, and not to plans. At least for now I have smaller layups to do, while the days get longer and the likelihood of a repeat of this situation decreases! Still building, 44°, 24' South!

Seems to work fine for the stretched Cozies, Longs, and the Berkuts. Not saying its trivial, but it can certainly be done safely. Again, though, it will need to be the right buyer, probably a rare breed for this sort of thing. I'm of the opinion that a non-plans airframe has essentially no value until it has flown and been proven.

This is where one gets good deals on good hardware. The modified fuse and so on probably isn't worth much unless you find the right buyer - someone looking to do something similar. Bit of a needle in a haystack. The 10" stretch isn't a major problem, provided one realizes that the plans CG limits will not apply, and a new range will need to be calculated and proven. Phase 1 will consequently be a bit higher risk than for a per-plans Long. You are right though - disrupting the natural order of things is takin' a might big risk!

Pleased to hear that this site is 'staying current'. I agree with Kent, Facebo integration is of no interest to me, I recently deleted my FB account too (after about 10 years). It's getting worse and worse over there. As I understand it, with the sad news of John Slade's passing, Canard Aviation will come to an end in the not-too-distant future. It would be good to encourage more centralization of the canard community here, and not promote dispersion of the discussions. And the e-mail lists are not much better, difficult to find a given discussion later, and full of quotes and replies tacked on all over the place.

Hi Jean, thanks for sharing your project with us. Sounds like it is at 90% complete, 90% to go, huh? An O-320 Long with the Drybread retracts should be very nice indeed!

I agree. It seems the huge cowl outlets may be an attempt to overcome cooling issues elsewhere in some cases. Your design is very interesting and certainly unique. The location makes a lot of sense for DD cooling. Do you have any photos of oil-flow tests or tufting? My only concern would be a separation bubble growing forward if the airflow cannot conform to the curvature back there.

Either overhead or armpits, yes. Also, NACAs are not well suited to feeding a radiator.

Yeah, but I don't own a set of gear yet. When I get a set, that will be a lot easier than having a gear set fabricated; Though I wouldn't be the first to try that. It is more work when installing the gear onto the spar, but saves a lot of time in other places, so is probably a wash. For instance Chapter 9 - I don't have fixed gear or a landing brake (not needed with retracts extended), so I can skip most of this chapter entirely (no, not the engine mount reinforcements, though!). No NACA or landing brake made chapter 7 a lot quicker, too. My website is WAY behind, and needs some work... lots of stuff there is incomplete. Again, ambitious...

Well, I don't have LG bulkheads and have deleted the NACA duct and the build-up to create it, so I'm a bit different, with a shallower lower firewall. This will produce a more gradual taper up from the belly to the prop. This also moves the lower engine mount hardpoints, so 'stock' engine mounts won't fit, but I'm not planning to mount anything that would fit on the other end of the engine mount anyway. (Yeah, I'm gonna poke both eyes out, aren't I?!) In the end, I won't be able to call it an Aerocanard.

No support from ACS for the Cozy, either! But there's a great community, so it doesn't matter either way. Yes, the aft fuselage / firewall drawing doesn't work on the Aerocanard plans, and the other changes make a number of aspects unclear in this area. I re-drew the firewall in CAD anyway, incorporating some other changes I have made, thus 'solving' that one, to some extent anyway!

Yep, recently did this. No regrets. Intelligent conversation is hard to come by there. Take that as a compliment, Canardzoners!!

I seriously investigated using a turbocharged engine for a long time. I discussed it with a number of very experienced and knowledgeable builders, and came to (was led to?) the conclusion that simply installing a larger NA engine is simpler, smaller, more reliable, and probably lighter too. And you'll have extra power available at low DAs. Disclaimer: I haven't installed or flown ANY engine yet, just learning and researching as I go to be well prepared when the time comes. This advice is worth every penny you paid for it.

I'm an Aerocanard plans holder. No updates have been issued, and the plans don't even include the last revision (3?) of changes issued for the Cozy plans (which are entirely relevant - they are almost identical after all!). That said, I like the improvements over the Cozy plans, though yes there are errors. Still better quality plans than for many other aircraft, as far as I can tell. Cross-checking information between different parts of the plans and the drawings seems to resolve most issues.

Hi Matt, If you are able to get some good photos of all that is there, the VariEze guys will be able to evaluate whats there and perhaps help you out.

Hi Kevin, The following thread may be of interest to you, regarding glass: http://www.canardzone.com/forum/topic/17837-rutan-fiberglass-specs/ There are resin options in Europe - I believe MGS is available there? You might even find a 'local' vendor.