EZ plans for all...

[guest - daniel]

I'm kinda new to all this, but very deep into aircraft design (no degree yet though:). If I understand it correctly there is no owner of the rights to the Vari Eze and Long EZ designs and nobody issues the plans and licences to build, correct?
If so, can someone could do us a favour and digitize those and post them somewhere for people to download. learn from it, possibly even build it. It kind of scares me when I see ads for selling the plans starting at a few hundred dollars and seeing 'desperate' prospective builders laing out over a thousand just to get them to start reading (with no guarantee they will build the plane). Maybe they'll just try to resell it for more money and we will end up having them on art auctions going for tens of thousands of dollars?!? I can't find that post now, but I've seen a post recently either on this forum or the canard zone by a person working with GPL applications who was absolutely right by saying that those plans should be free for all so everybody could contribute to them. I'm not interested in building an airplane as yet (I work on ships and I just can't see fitting a workshop in my tiny cabin...) but I really enjoy learning about them , because engineering is really about learning from other peoples ideas and experiences and not trying to brake out open doors. I think posting those plans on the web would do nobody any harm especially when it seems The Great One From The Desert doesn't care for them anymore (or is it just me seeing it this way?). Here I wish to bow down in front of him in great respect for his achievements and perhaps hereby kindly ask him for permission to do what I suggested.
Great respect to all of You creators Builders and Innovators

[Drew]

Rutan contracted with Terf(www.terf.com)  to sell a CD set of the plans.  For $295 you can buy the plans for the Longez, Varieze, Defiant, Variviggen, and Solitaire, plus all the Canard Pushers, plus the moldless composite construction manual.  None of the templates are included-----but if all you are trying to do is learn about it, you don't need the templates.

Aerocad plans are available for free download---see another post on this site.

[Waiter]

Try www.aerocad2.com and download thier plans.  If you decide to build it, purchase the plans and templates. These guys need to eat and pay the rent also.

Waiter

[Anonymous]

It might just be that the kid's got something here.

We can build any experimental of our own design, at any time, plans or not. So someone comes along and builds a Long Ez , calls it a Short EZ, and gets no support from "RAF" It is identical to any other "Authorized"
Project. Suppose they did so on borrowed, stolen or purchased plans.

The end result is another canard in the ranks.

I don't know the legal aspects of sharing plans but if it is done without commercial purposes in mind, what's the differece. So it doesn't have an official serial number or support. That what this site is all about

We keep dancing around "His Majesties" fire and he washed his hands of his homebuilding interests. years ago.

The important thing for us now is survival, and to do that we must pro-create.

We provide advice
We provide support
We provide knowledge
We provide experience
We provide the encouragement

Rutan did a great job on the designs and now it up to us to keep them going. Copied plans, borrowed plans, what ever, and for free.

Further, I wouldn't mind getting replacement pages or templates for the ones lost or destroyed 20 years ago.

OK I'm off the box now

[guest - daniel]

I did download the plans for the Aero Canard, and if wanted to build one I would gladly lay out the money for Jeff with no hesitation whatsoever. The point is I'm personally more interested in a tandem two seater like the Long EZ. The Aero Canard is a DIRECT DERIVATIVE (SIC!) of the Long EZ - that's for sure (so the downloaded plans are a great help already - enourmous amout of tips and knlowledge). Look at the subject this way: in the days when the RAF used to sell licences to build their airplanes one could build ONLY ONE AIRPLANE FROM ONE SET OF PLANS. You couldn't build two. One set of plans = One Airplane. Now that they've quit the business people build their airplane and sell the plans to someone else who will build an airplane (and call it a Long EZ). So if the designer IS NOT GETTING A CENT FOR PLANS FOR THE OTHER PLANE BEING BUILT what is keeping him from giving it out to the public. Do we have to wait until the designer leaves this life for it to become public wealth or will he patent it so that no engineer ever will be able to use his work (kinda like going back to stone age in my opinion and trying the same things again:) Look what is happening in the COZY community. The COZY plans are still on the market but are not digitized, so the fans and builders are making CAD blueprints and post them online to aid the builders with their work. Nobody is keeping a secret though. It is not approved by the designer and using them is like using a non approved modification. The builder is responsible for it being correct.
I've also visited the TERF website and frankly it is very tempting to get the CD as it is all nicely orginized and complete. The thing is all the newsletters are online already available for free simply scanned and made into pdf files. The Aero Cannard plans complement the building information. All that is left is sizes of planforms, aiffoils used angles of relative incidence, and details like firewall backward. I'm sure there will be people who know how to use Auto CAD, intellicad or similar. Check out those web sites it will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
http://www.cozybuilders.org , http://www.cozybuilders.org/cad_files/

[guest - Daniel]

One more thing, the temlates may not seem to be necessary for learning but they do incorporate geometrical info not foun anywhere else and that is usefull if you want to do some aerodynamical calculations.

[Charles Davis]

Jon,

The plans are copyrighted, which means you will never legally be able to copy significant parts of them unless Rutan decides not to enforce his copyright.

Rutan is very cautious about getting sued.  He has a lot to loose.

If he relinquished his copyright, and someone used the now public domain  plans to build a plane and then crashed it, someone will find a way to sue him (even if the crash had nothing to do with the plans!).

I'm not sure how hard he would fight to protect his copyright on the LongEZ plans, but if he chose NOT to enforce the copyright, it would be more likely that he would be held liable in a lawsuit!

Welcome to the upside-down world of litigation in the U.S.

 :twisted:

[Waiter]

I've put the AeroCanard Shareware Plans up on my web site.

www.iflyez.com  Look under DOWNLOADS

These are an excellent source of information on the EZ in general and the AeroCanard in particular.  If you plan on building one of these, You'll need to purchase the full set, which includes templates, support, and more importantly, pays these guys rent.

Waiter

[Tom]

We should all embrace Mr. Rutan's designs, not fight about them, perhaps there are some lawyers that can add some info to this thread, ie copyright infringement....

I dont thing anyone (including Mr. R wants to see the long/varie/ Whatever-canard) die. I think people are just sick of the bs>> ie planes crashing due to builder error not detected by the inspector,, and the lawsuits that follow..


My $0.02

PS if your from Canada,,  Spit on a Liberal! (or supporter for that matter)

[Jon Matcho]

Jon,...

What's going on here?!  This is a reply to a message I originally posted on this thread, but the message is now GONE!!!

Is someone deleting posts for some reason?  My profile shows that I've made a total of 4 posts, but this is now the only one w/my name on it.  Censorship?  Why?

[admin]

The censorship issue came up a month or so ago. We have deleted a couple
of porn links and other inappropriate posts, but other than that there is no
censorship.

Older posts were being removed automatically by the forum software but we
turned that off around the start of the year. Can't really explain your missing
post except stuff happens sometimes. I would not trust this fourm
software to be 100% 24/7.

[Jon Matcho]

How is 'inappropriate' defined here?  Do any of these qualify?

1) Don't worry about building from copied Long-EZ plans -- this isn't part of the FAA's criteria or concern.

2) Someone should go out on a limb and sell copied Long-EZ plans, removing all references to RAF, Burt Rutan, and the Long-EZ name, for the cost of materials, for the good of the community.

I just cannot believe that the software has some sort of defect that deletes only my posts.  The only reasonable answer is that someone made a mistake, deliberate or accidental.

[Waiter]

Jon, I had a couple of these happen to me. I think on a couple occations, I thought I was logged in, but I was a "GUEST".  

I'm also not sure how this software behaves when the cookie is lost before the transaction is completed, i.e. shut the page down before the cookie is verified.

(Sounds good in theory anyway)

I would recommend reposting and lets see what happens!

Waiter

[Jon Matcho]

I am certain that I saw my posts for days upon days, and am equally certain it's not a cookie issue.

Thanks anyway.

[TERF Inc]

Hello Everybody...

With respect... There seems to be a lot of confusion over  Long EZ, VariEze, VariViggen, Defiant and Solitaire plans and the associated Canard Pusher Newsletters.

This is all very simple.  Burt Rutan personally entered into a contract with us at TERF Inc. after winning the bid against 13 other companies for the Sole Authority for the Copyrights to the information.  We pay him a royalty when they sell.  There is no ambiguity here, it is not "free", "share ware" or up for grabs and we do defend our copyright against anyone who tries to "give the material away" or sell it.  RAF (Rutan Aircraft Factory) supported us for years in disseminating the information we have carefully published in adobe .PDF format.

Having said this.  If someone needs "just a page" or some such, I always try to help them out without the need to purchase the whole set.  I have often offered whole sets to folks at a HUGE discount if the situation warrants it.

Regarding the price... Keep in mind, this body of work is more than 2100 documents that (at the time) were individually and painstakingly hand placed and scanned into the database.  The "high speed feed hoppers" of today didn't exist then.  It took 4 people more than a man year to enter all of this data, catalog it and publish the CD set on very early computer equipment.  Believe me, it was no small task to be sure.  Each page is bright, clear and high enough resolution you can see the original staple holes.

We are a very small company keeping this information safe from disappearing and available to all at a significant cost to us.  Soon we will need to go back into publication (to get more CDs) as we have exhausted most of our 1000 sets sold over the last 16 years of continuous service to the Experimental Aviation Community.  This will be expensive.  When you call... I answer the phone personally!   Every time.

The price we ask for this valuable set is less than any ONE instrument you will buy to put on the instrument panel. 

Remember!  This is for all 5 planes and the Canard Pusher Newsletters in searchable format AS WELL AS the "Moldless Sandwich Construction Manual".  This Construction Manual is used in the Cozi Plans (as I understand things) and a royalty is paid for this inclusion as well.

AS far as building any of the planes goes (INCLUDING THE LONG EZ); at a tent seminar at Oshkosh, that I attended personally, Burt Rutan laid it out very clearly like this.

Burt: "I don't care if you build "Xerox EZs" (my planes).  You are welcome to do so, just don't call them "Long EZs".  Call them "John EZs" or "Frank EZs".  After all, no two of them are ever the same.  Have fun just don't make me liable."

I hope this clears up any confusion.  Please consider purchasing the Rutan Aircraft Factory CD ROM Encyclopedia from us as the legitimate source and support our efforts to keep this valuable resource available for everybody, our kids and generations to come.

I look forward to hearing about your projects.

                          Sincerely
                        Matthew Tait
                       President & Chief Engineer
                       TERF Inc.
                       mtait@terf.com
                       www.terf.com
                       800 ** 975 ** 1445 Phone       
                       248 ** 210 ** 8009 Phone