Hangar Flying

Keep surfing this site.  There are all kinds of discussions about new guys flying EZs, how they handle, and what it takes to fly them.

I believe that you will also find all kinds of stuff in here about quality of workmanship.

Recently there were discussions on people selling EZs----and those types of people you should avoid.

When you are ready, you can probably find a person to inspect for you.  But in a nutshell...did the builder use the right number of layers or fiberglass or not?  You will never know unless you cut the part in half and take a look.  However, those builders with good reputations, those that meticulously documented their project (including pictures----see Wayne Hick's site as an example), those with planes that have a fair number of hours on them (proven), plus a whole host of other indicators can give you a good indication of how good the airplane is.

The one warning I give to potential buyers-----don't think you can avoid getting your hands dirty by buying an already built fiberglass airplane.  Be prepared to learn a lot about fiberglass, epoxy, engines, hardware, etc.  If you don't like working with your hands, or don't have time to learn about these machines------then experimental aviation is not for you----or if you have lots of money, you can probably get someone to take care of it for you.

If you surf this site (as well as canardzone.com) you will find all the answers you are looking for.

Just called BMA to see how much sooner 'till my Lite ships (next week).  Asked about the G4.  Same price, has the "synthetic vision" terrain for its attitude display, new vender for the components (1 board vice 2).  Switched my order to the G4---will be here in 6 weeks.

Once you try the O320, you will never want to go back.

I had a cig lighter socket in the backseat without shielded wire.  Plugged in the as bought heater into the socket.  Radio noise is what I was talking about.  My wife was fine with the blanket.  I have seen many others talk good about the heated clothes.  For me, as long as my feet were warm, I was pretty good.  I usually used the chemical inserts that you put in your shoes.

The IFR course from the Kings is only good for passing the IFR written.  If you are good studying the concepts in book form and taking a lot of practice tests (you can do these online too), you don't need the King course.

At Sheble's you spend lots of time in the sim.  All flights were partial panel (no attitude and no DG).  You get quite good at timed turns (there is all kinds of good gouge on this).  The only full panel approach I did while I was there was during my checkride---kind of weird--it was my worst approach while I was there----I guess I had too much information available!!  

I tried something very much like that in my Longez.  Made too much electrical noise.  You can probably figure out ways to filter it out though.  For the most part, I was looking for a way to keep my wife warm in the back seat.  In the end, I used a 12 volt electric blanket (car blanket) that did pretty good.

Try berkut13.com and see if he can send you a copy of the templates.  Or you can look on his website to get the essence of it.

But the basics for the longez was to bend metal around a lot of odd shapes and drop the baffle straight from the cylinder to the lower cowl---uuuggghhh!

The berkut style basically has 4 nice "solid" wall (back, front, left, right) with no "real" bends except the tabs at the end to fasten them together.  Instead of bending the major "walls" around to seal the weird shapes, you use "shelves" to do this instead.  You can "shelve the rear baffle in such a way as to get out of the way from much of the starter and alternator.  When you do this, your "drop" the the lower cowl is much shorter and cleaner.

The intercylinder baffles and the curvy pieces that go around the cylinders are pretty much the same.  I would recommend to include using the standard intercylinder baffle.

If you want downdraft cooling like I had in my longez (see my website), the baffling is even more simpler since you have no alternator or starter to even go around---extremely clean installation.

I don't think that insulating the muff is the problem.  There are a couple of things you could check.  1st, are you getting flow from the scat to the cockpit.  If you are not, then it does not matter how hot you are generating the air---you have to have flow.  For flow to generate, you have to have higher pressure inside the cowl than inside the cockpit.  I think most people bring in fresh air to the muff and then send it into the cockpit.  I have a simpler approach and just take cowl air instead.

If you have good flow but it is cold, then you have a heat generation problem.  The ridges on the scat, uninsulated scat, and uninsulated muff are not making a difference for my setup----I am still generating plenty of heat.  If the air is cold, your problem really can only reside in a couple of areas.  Either your inflow of air is moving to fast through the muff to be heated or you don't have enough surface area on your muff to collect heat.

You may want to take a look on some Cozy sites to see pictures of the setup.

Here is what Nat Puffer says from one of his newsletters (and mine works exactly as he describes).

"To get a decent heat muff, we had to design a new 4-pipe exhaust system and find a supplier who could do a good job in building them (see pictures in newsletter #37). The idea was to collect heat from the two longest pipes, #2 and #4 on the right side. The pipes have to be free to move with respect to each other, so the pipes are supplied with only a partial muff welded to pipe #4. The builder completes the muff by wrapping a .016" aluminum shroud around both pipes. The one heat muff can supply heat to either the carburetor or the cabin, if a tee is installed in the line.

We didn't have a chance to test the system until just recently. I hooked up the cabin heat temporarily without a shut-off valve or blower and went for a ride. During the take off roll I could feel the heat pouring out, and after getting airborne. it was darned uncomfortable, even with full fresh air though the vents. I was satisfied I wouldn't need a blower, and made the installation permanent by installing a on/off valve ahead of the firewall, between the back seats. It is operated by a auto choke cable mounted just above the fuel selector valve. I ordered a carbon monoxide detector, to monitor and make sure no carbon monoxide finds its way into the cockpit. The hot air system. when it is in use, gives off some heat to the air going to the oil cooler, with a resulting increase in oil temperature. Since cabin heat is only needed in cold weather, this might turn out to be an advantage in keeping the oil temperature from getting too low. Needless to say, we are much relieved to know that the cabin heat system works well if installed the way described above."