Patrick

But having said that it would probably be a fair buy, as long as the price is right. How much does he want for it?

The VE is a really fun machine. Find someone who has experience in mold-less aircraft structures and pick his brains regarding the structure and finishing process if you want to renovate it. It is easy to destroy this kind of structure with “ham handed” workmanship, as the load bearing structures are very thin and can easily be compromised by too much vigorous sanding.

Hi there Ratdog, I hate to see people struggling to rescue projects that are almost certainly perfectly OK. I am just in the process of finishing my second Long Ez, so please let me help here. The F22 bulkhead is the structure upon which the canard is mounted. The instrument panel is 18.5 inches further aft, at fuselage station 40.5 (depending on which side of the bulkhead you measure it). The parts of the F22 bulkhead which react the vertical loads of the canard are buried inside the fuselage walls. The vertical piece in the middle of the F22 is needed to stiffen the whole area, and from what I can see in your photos is still intact. It looks as though someone has cut out the the middle of the instrument panel. This bulkhead needs to be intact to stiffen the box structure of the fuselage in that area, but it is not as critical as the F22. I don't think you have a huge problem. You could do one of 2 things. 1. The easy solution. Make a complete new instrument panel from 1/4 in aircraft quality plywood and bolt it to the remaining flange that is still there. This needs a bolt every 4 inches or so, to ensure it is properly secured. You would also need to insert some plywood hard points at the bolt points to prevent the foam from crushing. 2. The more elegant solution. Remove the bits of the old panel and glass in a completely new instrument panel in exactly the same place, using the correct number of glass plies. One of the very early Canard Pushers suggests that plywood is OK for the instrument panel and a few other components, with a slight weight penalty. I hope this is of some help, please let me know how it goes. Cheers, Patrick.

I suggest you start from scratch. Get the owners handbook, it is on line and take the aircraft into a hangar with measuring tape, large steel square, plumb bob and a piece of chalk. If you cannot get a set of aircraft weighing scales, borrow a set of scales from your friendly medical centre, that's what I did. Follow the instructions in the manual, it is quite simple. This is the only way you will be absolutely sure that it is correct and it will only take a few hours. By the way, make sure the aircraft is level when you take the weight measurements, but that's obvious I think.