Hotel Mike flyby!

If you can excuse the running with the camera in the beginning..... This video is the only time I have seen the airplane from the ground. I had no idea what it even sounds like. Sure takes a lot longer to turn around than the Cub did.

Enough building - Let's Fly!

With almost 40 hours of flying on the airplane I rarely have to take the cowling off anymore.

The airplane is an excellent design. Absolutely no problems related to the airframe or flying ability. The stability tests were a breeze.

And fast? I learned not to get behind a Cessna in the pattern. You'll be doing 360s.

After flying a J-3 Cub for decades, I expect climbing to be work. Not anymore. Catching a sunset from 4,000 feet is a ten minute job.

If you've ever built an airplane before you know: After a few hours of flying the hard endless hours of labor and struggle and brainstorming are difficult to remember.

Prop Balancer

Only 10 hours of use and the prop had to be refinished! Even on clean pavement the nose wheel kicked up a lot of stuff until installing the nose wheel fender, which works very well. The only drawback was that pushing the plane backwards causes the nose wheel to swing 180 degrees. Not anymore. The fender gets in the way. But I still recommend the fender.

So now, with all the repair work, is the prop still in balance?

The whole deal with a prop balancer is arranging a center hub that fits the prop center hole securely and rides on two 'knife edges'. Turns out to be simple. I used 1/8" aluminum plate, but 1/4 " plywood would do. The trick is putting the 1/4" steel rod snugly in the center. For this you need a lathe. Sorry. Don't even try this without a lathe.

Both discs fit OK, but still, four small pieces of 1/8" masking tape on the edges made it fit nice and snug.

Now the steel tube rides on 1/2" aluminum tubes mounted on wood. All this is scrap you've got laying around from building the airplane. The aluminum 'rails' have to be perfectly level and parallel, of course.

The amazing thing is to watch the prop balancer work. Just set the prop in place and stand back. It moves all by itself, slowly and surely, until the heaviest part is at the bottom. Lead weight is seen above taped to the light side temporarily until the prop no longer moves by itself. Then a small hole is drilled in the hub and the lead set inside and finished with a glued in wood plug and varnish.

This setup is so sensitive that you MUST close all doors and windows to avoid any drafts. A coat of varnish on one blade will make a noticeable difference.

WHEEL PANTS

The airplane isn’t finished until the wheel pants are on.  Heat issues require leaving them off while taxi testing and on early flights, but now that that’s over……                                                                             Sam James seems to be the best name in wheel pants.   My Cozy pilot neighbor, being the racing type, actually removed a perfectly good set of wheel pants to install a set of Sam James, so they must be good.

    The instructions clearly say to solve any wheel alignment issues before fitting wheel pants.  I tried a laser but a string seemed to actually be easier and quite accurate.  The plans say you can heat and twist the landing gear.  I say that’s fine if you know what you’re doing.  I chose to remove the axle, put a glob of flox behind it and slowly re-tighten the axle bolts just until alignment is correct and let it harden.  Later, replace the bolts that came up short with longer ones.

Cutting holes is unnerving, but you can repair your mistakes.  It’s fiber glass!

Instruction are simple enough.  Build this jig.  It all comes together, but there is no end to cutting, fitting, sanding…  you know the drill.

These pants are designed for the Long EZ.  You even get a choice of wheel/tire size.

The fairing starts with clay.  I traced the teardrop outline on the pant surface and start pressing clay into shape. It’s really very simple.  Glass it when you are happy.                                                                                It was my personal choice to split the fairing so that it is completely removable.  Some day I’ll be grinding into the gear leg to replace the brake line. This requires a third mounting point.  You have two mounting points on either side of the axle.  The third I had to invent without drilling into the landing gear,   thus, one more nut in a glob of flox on the landing gear.

The rest is body work and painting.  The plans estimate of 25 hours installation time seems about right.

Cabin Heat – Forward airflow

The elevator torque tube, not being concentric in operation, means a large opening in the fuselage up front and cold feet.  Here's my solution.  It seems so simple.                                                    

First seal the entire canopy with soft, open cell foam from the hardware store. The canopy has no problem closing and it’s air tight.  Next, get the cabin air flowing forward.

This is a fuzzy shot of the torque tub opening.  I have fared the hole back so air tends to flow out, not catching and blowing in.  The canard then gets a small set of fairings to divert air away from this hole. 

A small NACA duct under the wing feeds air to the oil cooler and 60 percent of that air goes into this plenum and  is piped through the firewall with a butterfly valve controlled by the GIB via push-pull cable.

Scat tube takes the hot air to the front opening of the hell hole.

A piece of 1 inch foam board forms the seat back which has a U channel cut so that heat comes up and into the cabin behind the head of the GIB.  Heat could possibly be fed into the hell hole and allowed to find it’s way forward at a lower level. but I’m not sure heating up the landing gear is a good idea.  This picture also shows a second seat back specially built for the little lady, who seems to be shaped differently than a man. The principle is the same. Fiberglass reinforces the foam where necessary.

The key is in the  fairings under the canard.  I made a set out of aluminum and duct taped them on to experiment.  They are about 4 inches long and keep air from slamming into the  elevator tube.  Even before fairing the hole I had warm air around my feet.  No cold draft at all. Now I’ve made them officially out of fiberglass.

Nose wheel Fender

With only 11 hours on the finished airplane I’ve had to refinish the varnish on the prop once already.  Granted, I’ve done a lot of taxiing, but the nose wheel is famous for kicking tiny pebbles up into the prop.  So while the fiberglass is going, we build this.

Proper spacing is corrugated cardboard covered with duct tape and glassed over.  The fender has to go all the way around until it almost touches the ground.  Then all of this has to fit in the wheel well when the gear retracts.  And it CAN NOT bind on it’s way down!

Exhaust Augmentation

  

I don’t understand how Long EZ pilots keep temps down while idling.  There is very little air flow for cooling before take off.  A few have used exhaust augmentation and it seems like the solution.

Mine consists of  an aluminum heat barrier around the exhaust pipe. It is 20 inch wide flashing rolled into a cylinder and riveted.  Foam spacers keep the pipe concentric. What diameter?  Double the diameter of the pipe seems right.  That makes it slightly larger than the intake diameter, which is ram air.  These cylinders get glassed to the lower cowl and spacers removed.                                                                        Lastly I will glass over the aluminum and fare it into the lower cowling.                                                          Theoretically, the main opening should now be sealed off!  I’m going to have to experiment with that.

Downdraft Cooling Plenum Finished.

The finished product. The cowling slides right on, the dipstick is air tight and so is the plenum. 

To access the spark plugs requires removing the plenum lid, a ten minute job.

The difficult part of down draft cooling

It would have been easier to form the plenum lid from foam and cover it, I think.  My way required going back too many times to strengthen edges and create the mating surfaces.  Note the ridge on this opening.  When the top cowling lowers into place it must meet this face.  Hopefully sealing can be accomplished with a bit of weather-stripping.

The real difficult part is getting the cowling on over the dipstick in such  a way that it is air tight.  The thing is just IN THE WAY!!  Finally, I shortened the dipstick tube 1 1/4 inches.  Now I can fiberglass right to it and it is down out of the flow of air.  Again, the upper cowl will have to join these surfaces in a tight fitting manner… somehow.  I’m sure somebody knows a better way to  get air from the cowl intake to the plenum.

Down Draft Cooling Construction 12/15/2009

Our experimental downdraft cooling system worked so now we’ll make it official.  Starting with the intake plenum, the left and right intakes need to be framed up. Note the fiberglass frame.  The outer edge is vertical but the inner is angled so the upper cowl will find its way ‘home’ when we set it in place.

The dip stick is always in the way.  The big improvement is to seal it off so no pressure is lost to the lower side.

Frame on the right side.  These will be riveted in place and silicone sealed.

Next we replace the sheet aluminum lid with fiberglass.  The shape was too complex for a single sheet.  I started by lining the surface with duct tape and building a flox corner, kind of reverse engineering.  After it hardens I’ll sand it flush with the edge to give us a surface to attach the lid.

Here’s an idea from the old days of covering with Ceconite.   It is tacked down around the edges and heat shrunk to remove wrinkles.  Next, two plies of fiberglass are wetted out right on top.

Incidentally, I’ve heard that the plenum lid is necessary because using only the upper cowl as a lid creates internal pressures in flight that would be worrisome at least. 

When this hardens, it is removed, Ceconite and all.  The Ceconite is natural peel ply.  It rips right off.

                                                     

Disassembly

       Isn’t ironic?  It was the last snow of spring when we assembled the plane at Saratoga.  Now we disassemble with the first snow of winter.  I guess it’s good timing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Last Spring                                        My thanks to David and Billy Underwood for helping.  It was cold and windy but the job is done.  Now for the long list of modifications and repairs.  We need wheel pants, finish the down draft cooling system, add interior lights, arrange to carry a passenger, etc.   Sure beats driving to Saratoga.

12/6/09 Home for the Winter

 

Interesting.. ..   This is a panaramic view of my shop.  That’s the Cub under wraps of on the right.  Yep, two complete airplanes in one garage.   Hope I don’t have a fire.

Flight 11/22/09 35 min.. total 11 hrs

Overcast! But promising to clear. I'm trying to get at least 4,000 ft so I can head to GFL and Garnsey. Trying out the KLX 135A GPS/ Comm on a short cross country. A lot to learn just programming in a few airports.

Bob Ulliano says my cooling problems may have been from cruising too slowly! I added half a quart of oil anyway. On take off the CHT still went right up to red line. Leveling off at 800 ft and gaining 130 kts is the only way I know to cool it off again. I have to circle the airport after every take off.

The GPS is wonderful, except it refuses to take me to GFL. It will only take me to Garnsey! So that's where I went. I followed the turn anticipation system to the next heading and noticed a vibration. Seemed like a prop/ spinner imbalance, or perhaps my imagination. Whatever, I turned back towards Saratoga only to find myself completely blinded by the western sun and lousy haze. Not two miles visibility! Can hardly see my own instruments. Now I'm almost dependent on the GPS. How do you make it take you back? The test is on.

All the numbers are there. The bearing to the airport, your ground track, etc.

The vertical card compass looks a lot like a directional gyro and it works well........ as long as you are standing still. It has all the ills of a magnetic compass. Again, it works, but when you're in a pinch you're really in a pinch. The brain strain is significant. What will happen on a real cross country?

11/17/09 Flight .8hrs

After work I sat at 8,000 ft  and watched the orange sun go down.  Blue sky.  Everything was blue, even my wing except where the sunlight hit.  That was orange.  The airplane is blue and orange.  No camera.  The batteries would be dead anyway.

When the last sliver of sun disappeared I considered making it rise again, but my temps were strangely high.  Ambient temp was colder than ever.  32 deg.  And I’m just poking along at 110 kts climbing slowly.  Oil temp was 220 deg!   Why?!   Time to go down.  We could have used a quart of oil, could that be it?   Or do we get poor cooling when cruising slowly?

 

Long EZ, Early test flight

Long EZ, Early test flight

11/8/09 Flight

1.7 hours flown

New 1” foam behind seat cushion.  Very cozy now.

Brake caliper repaired, no leakage, but I’m no longer trusting the thing.  Saratoga Airport has finally been mowed, so if I have to go off the runway in a wide left turn the field seems flat enough.  The plane has at least half full tanks, heaviest yet.   In the two weeks I haven’t flown, things are no longer automatic.  I’m very dependant on the checklists.

But she still flies great.  Temps go right up to maximum on take off. 425 degrees CHT.   Oil temp is fine.  Nose gear is up right away.  Throttle back to 2,000 rpm to let things cool off.

I followed the Northway up to Glens Falls,  one big long emergency landing strip.  GPS   ‘Direct To’  works great.   Over my partner’s house for the first time and………   nobody home.

Next came Argyle, where I found Mike Shearer in his Aeronca.  We just started to play tag when the engine faultered.  At about 1200 ft I could make the grass strip, but I don’t want a forced landing!   I gained some altitude and started going through the systems.  Still plenty of fuel, but some fool pulled the mixture back instead of the throttle.   The knobs are completely different in shape so as to avoid any confusion but it still happened.  

Today’s big experiment was to test the relief tube.   It works well and I learned why the system earned its name.

Also, a problem with all Long EZs is the terrible draft of cold air entering around the elevator tube.   The problem is greatly reduced if not solved by simply taping on and aluminum fairing which directs air away from the hole and tube.  I will make it permanent with fiber glass when it comes home.

Just before sunset, everyone is trying to land at once.  Hard to find a space to talk on the radio.   I want this landing as slow as possible so as not to depend so much on the brakes.  80 kts on final, touch down at 65, and she still floated off again,  but the brakes worked fine and we rolled slowly down the second half of the runway.

Parked again, the sun has set, and I still spend long moments just marveling at what this machine has just done.

Pictures

Long EZ Progress

She flies great, but as of 10/15/09 we are on the ground.   Seems a lot of dirt got into the right brake caliper and crudded up the piston O-ring.  The result is a leak and no right turns.  Fortunately this happened on a taxiway, going very slowly.  I do remember the right brake fading just a little on the last landing but only the right side.  Shudda figured!  Now the preflight checklist will include checking for dripping calipers.