Crummy Review

[flyingwaldo]

A high time cockpit hopper wrote up a stealthy hatchet job on the Varieze in this month's Kitplane magazine.  Seems every paragraph has at least one or more negative words or connotations.  While thinking up the outline of a letter to the Editor, Marc Cook, I thought perhaps our very best writer and, coincidentally Vari expert, might be a lot better suited to the task.

So, Bill James, interested in the challenge??

[Bruce Hughes]

Bill James should do it, if he has time.   There are also several others such as Joe Person.
Marc Zeitlin, although he flies a Cozy, would be another good letter writer, I think.   The
people who work on our canards would also be good choices (if any have time).

Bruce Hughes   

[flyingwaldo]

Good idea Bruce.  Perhaps Joe and Bill could give the complete perspective it needs.
Cheers!

[Bill James]

"Kinda like putting a beautiful babe on the cover, and inside, a technical treatise on how a woman's elbow works."

That was one of my first thoughts. However, I expect that the author Bob Grimstead hit his mark and would grade it as an A or A+, and rightly so. 
My second thought is, I wish for anyone attempting to present a treatise on this particular subject, that they could benefit from living in the nurture of an Eze a little longer than this quick low pass. Very likely the pilot would come to naturally do things like lead the turns (in the VariEze) with a little rudder, and with more of a relationship might notice that any project can take a long time to finish or may not be finished at all. That content might more closely resemble what those of us would include that are fortunate enough to have cycled through several realizations of the VariEze experience.
It might have been just as well without some of the Dead End content, but I expect the author got it exactly as he intended. I really like Kitplanes, especially Barnaby and Robrucha, and consistently use the aircraft reports as references. So far none of the excellent reports has resulted in convincing me to change airplanes 
Evidently Steve Brown was very deliberate about the details of this second VariEze, and maybe he should provide us with a private rest of the story.

[go ez]

Hi Bill & all - thank you for your interest & comments
Mike & I were indeed a little disappointed with some of the comments but we took them and Bob's experience and objectivity at face value and we certainly didn't want to appear too precious or biased.
Bob flew in the back with me to a local airfield for about 20 mins, then we did a photo  sortie with a very experienced formation pilot flying the Eze, me in the back, with Bob taking pictures in the photoship which was a lovely Cessna 120. Clearly the 70 kt formation speed was not ideal for the Eze's handling. Some great photos resulted.
Bob then flew the Eze back to base with me in the back for about 25-30 mins and a single landing. An example of how things can be inadvertantly misleading is that we let the a/c run to use the full 1800m available after landing -hence the 1500 yard comment yet at full gross we regularly turn off at about 550m without heavy braking. Due to limited time availability, Bob didn't have a chance to really give her a full test and I think his  brief was to discover why (in Europe at least) the canards are not as popular as initial enthusiasm promised. This may have encouraged 'deficiency searching'.
With the one caveat of no rough (or even grass) airfields, we think the Eze is an absolute gem of an a/c - particularly in the era of high fuel costs and recognising that, as we age, even the Long Ez is heavy to manhandle and lift unaided compared to the Eze.

[Bill James]

Congrats Steve and Mike on making the cover and having your beautiful VariEze described for the world to see. I am sure all of us are a little jealous, in a good way. If I read the article right it seems that you have accomplished an amazing personal goal by fully completing a second aircraft. Many of us are still trying to just get one done. And then some of us are in a further distant group that never really expects or intends to "finish...."
The disappointing elements you mentioned were suspected. And you fared better than a friend that had provided a near perfect set of pictures and text to a magazine, but was not happy with the result, and still isn't. So good for you guys! I think your aircraft is a great example for displaying the results of the distillation over the years of Burt's pivotal design. Great job.
I do hope this will inspire others in the group that are capable and prepared, to put their plane in the spot light. The CSA newsletter has a supportive audience and is a good start for practice.

[go ez]

Thanks Bill for your kind words & generous perspective.

We consider ourselves very lfortunate to have been able to benefit from the decades of development, miriad of ideas, improvements, tips and  suggestions from so many generous and talented individuals over those years. I crashed and totalled my first Eze through pilot error and my survival was fortunate - aided greatly by the strength of the Eze and it gave me the opportunity/motivation to build another.

People like you, Gary H, Terry S and Marc Z have contributed silently both to our a/c, the way we operate it and how we view the priviledge  of flight in our own creation. - efficiently and hopeully now in a safe and conservative manner. 

The CP notes still inspire me - both from an engineering anfd flight operations point of view and I often read it a bit like a novel. The pioneering spirit and cameraderie of those early days shine out from them and not being part of it at the time  is only partly tempered by the benefit we accrue from coming along a bit later,
Mike is a long time CSA member and we have done a few articles on improvements and technical developments to help keep that spirt alive.

Ezes are unique a/c, both as a genre and as  individual a/c & the ability to customise, repair and  adapt them from raw materials means they have an almost infinite longevity - in not requiring support from a kit manufacturer.

Regards
Steve

[Linda]

How about getting this Bob Grimstead  to come to OSH this year and most likey see the top 20 or so canards in the world there.  Also, why is Kit Plane picking on the EZs they are not Kit planes anyway. LOL

[Bill James]

"....I often read (the CPs) a bit like a novel."
Steve, you hit my head on the nail  !  This is the un-thought thought that I have wished for so many folks –that they could read the CPs and see that they are more than just another stack of pesky boring technical unpleasantries that old fogies try to push on new enthusiasts just for the sake of it–
Where you can mentally work your way up through the high-jinks and low-jinks with the pioneers, moving through elevons and spoilers and widened elevators and shortened canards and ailerons and belly boards and the many significant growth spurts that the VariEze flailed through in a couple of short years - where the non-fiction account reveals the many intricate nuances of the design – and maybe after living through the early days it becomes part of your story and after which so many “great ideas” would come into the simple light of day (harsh reality) and fall of their own weight…  Ha. Weight. That’s a good one    
Maybe the CPs can also be of use or interest for the new owner or builder that gets the plane up and flying and then sits back in an easy chair –Ha- to recount the history of his/her steed, to appreciate the experience even more.
I bought the VariEze plans on day one and got license #619. My CP subscription started immediately and i got the earlier ones too and read and re-read them all, as well as anything else written on the plane, as part of the elite group of left-outers, for 15 years. So the CPs were kind of a life-line. In perfect timing I finally got going and am about to catch up soon 
So enough about the CPs. You said a lot of other interesting things for us folks to chew on and should probably go on for a bit. Please keep notes on your thoughts even if you don't post them immediately.
Congrats again-

[Linda]

Good read Mr Bill.  I always learn from your input.  I also read and re-read the CPs.  I have all the original publication.  They are good. N36EJ We will see ya'll at OSH.