Hangar Flying

I very much enjoy going to fly-ins/airshows and talking aviation with whoever wants to strike up a conversation.  There is always a lot of curiosity with these weird looking machines.

On the east coast you are normally assured "Rock-Star" parking at airshows---so that's always a plus!

I will be taking my Cozy MKIV to the Udvar Hazy Museum on 16 Jun for display.  The Museum has invited a cadre of pilots to participate in this event for the past three years (and this is my 3rd time to go).  It is called "Be a Pilot Day."  Land at IAD, taxi the service road to the museum, and park out back.  The museum opens the back door to let the crowd out at 1000.

Before they let the crowd out the back, they have to participate in a safety brief which is very well done.

The most often heard comment---which I was very surprised to hear---was "look!---there is a baby seat in back."  Keep in mind that my wife and I are sitting in folding chairs underneath the wing with a then 8 month old.  Never did figure out (nor ask) whether the surprise was that we flew with a baby-----or that we would actually put a baby in a baby seat in a plane.  That comment way outbeat "why is the plane sitting on its nose?"  Many times when I go to airshow/fly-ins, I leave the gear down (or partially retracted) just so I don't get that question----plane is set up for solo flight upfront---wife and baby in rear).  However, if I am trying to get out of the shade, I'll put the chairs under the wing and retract the gear to get some more headroom.

Even in the Tomcat, we would do a little trickery to not answer some questions that we preferred not to answer.  For example, normal shutdown in the Tomcat would leave one exhaust nozzle open and the other closed.  So we would shutdown the Tomcat in an abnormal way that would leave both nozzles looking the same.

We love talking about our machines---Tomcats, Cozys, Longezs---whatever.  But if I can steer the questioning to some of the more fun aspects, I will.

And with the Cozy and Longez, I will never escape the "why is this airplane backwards?"  And of course I always answer that the Wright Brothers also flew with the tail upfront, the wing and propellers on the back.  "I think all the other airplanes are backwards."  That's when you see the gears turn, get a smile, and they say, "you're right"!

Who ever comes out to Dulles on this day---see you there!

My thigh support was made as per CP 28 page 8.  It has a drawing of the configurations as well as the following text:

"This little item really makes a difference to back seat comfort.  This position works excellently for people from 5'4" to 6'4".  Fabricate from R45 foam with 1 ply BID on each side."

I have flown people in the 6'4" range.  They kind of had to scrunch down with the headset---and tight fit on the shoulders---but they made it.

If you try to sit someone more erect, you are going to sacrifice the height of people you can fly.

Even though my rear seat comfort went way up by this mod, I have sat in other R/C seats that had even better comfort.  If you hop in one that you like, copy it.

My favorite mods
-long nose
-brake master cylinders (laydown) upfront
-electric nose gear on longez not really necessary----however, it lets you partially retract to give you straight tracking in the event of wheel brake failure
-electric trim
-O320 with beefed up engine mount extrusions, ram air, fuel injection, downdraft cooling
-pneumatic canopy stay
-push-pull throttle and mixture
-removable panel to get to the back of the instruments
-thigh support for back seat
-internal fuel sumps (either under the rearseat armrests or in the rear seat thigh support)
-big rudders
-engine monitor (spend the money to monitor all of your EGT, CHTs on one instrument---most will also do every other temp you want too)
-metal (.093 or so thick) instrument panel
-breakers and important switches (like mags or elect ign) mount on separate panel on right longeron.  It is very dry there.  The main panel tends to get wet in the rain.  Think about what electric stuff you don't want to short out
-VGs or Ronz canard
-gear leg fairings and wheelpants
-nice aerodynamic cowls


I used glider tape at the intersections on my Longez.  My Cozy currently has silicone in the gaps

For the equations that don't have fuel flow, I am not sure how you get around not using MP (along with RPM)----unless this equation takes your specific fixed pitch propeller into account.  But hey---I don't know how to do it!

swinn,
Can you post your percent power equation?

George Shells pix are better than the ones I have posted.  My upper cowl pretty much looked like his.

http://www.geocities.com/~kleb/homebuilt/shell/

Similar to Charles, I cut a rectangular hole in the front part of the cowl.  I then nailed a couple of blocks of foam together to get the approximate size of the inlet.  I cut a for and aft template out of thin aluminum.  Both templates were the same.  The template's purposes was to get me the circular shape of the inlet----and hot wire the inside of the inlet.  At this point you have a shoebox looking inlet with a big hole in the middle.  The next thing to do is to put the inlets into the cowl holes and align them to the proper angles.  Then you need to "glue in" a bunch of transition foam pieces-----very similar to how you see people making their own cowls from scratch.  Once everything is pretty much in place, you can knock down the edges of the inlets with foam sanding blocks----pretty easy to get to the shape that you want.  The harder part is getting the transition to look nice.  Spend all of your time making it look good in foam---fixing in fiberglass is much harder.  When it is all done and glassed in, you can dremel out the old portion of the cowl (some of the glass and all the foam)that is not longer needed.  The only foam that was left in the inlet was the leading edge shape of the inlet---all other foam was removed.

One difference my upper cowl had from George's was I had an oil door in the left inlet.  I used the old hinge mechanism from the portion of cowl that I cut out.