Hangar Flying

Greetings Gang,

I just wanted to let those of you who are in the Central Florida area that I will be moving down there next week.  I recently accepted a position with a company based in Longwood.  I’m going to be based at the Orlando Sanford Airport. (http://www.airnav.com/airport/sfb) and right next door to Simon Ramirez.  I should be in the area late in the week and expect to DRIVE over to Sun N Fun.  I’m leaving the BerkEz in Atlantic City for a little while although she has been flying very well for the past few weeks.  It really is an awesome airplane thanks to Oertel.  Anyway, that’s all for now.  

-Frank Pullano Jr
 BerkEz N97JD
 Atlantic City NJ for another week.

What Chris said....

What happened with the pervious sale back in the Fall?

If you mean 500EZ, the original buyer found out that he didnt' fit into a varieze.

I don't know if this adds value to my side of this discussion but....

I have been talking with the fellow who bought my plane a few weeks ago and mostly we communicate via email.  He sent me a very nice message this evening detailing his experiences in VariEze N500EZ.  The last paragraph of his email is pasted below and I think it's important enough to repeat it here.

You have to put yourself in the shoes of a new canard owner who isn't aware of every little issue that a typical EZ has.  Well, anyway... for what it's worth to those who might still disagree with me on this point.

(note: The autopilot that he talks about is the Trio EzPilot, and the Dynon is the D10 variant, and the Garmin is the GPS Pilot III.  The leak on the crank case is coming from the garloc seal at the flange.  He mentioned the brakes since I overhauled them shortly before I delivered the plane to him; the right brake had a slight leak at the piston o-ring.)

Brandon Roberts Wrote,

.... "I got your message the other day—my wife and I have been flying all over the place.  We absolutely love 500EZ.  We’re discovering great little airports all around, and getting very acquainted with the airplane.  She flies great.  The engine has been running smooth and working as advertised—I’m keeping an eye on that crankcase leak.  The oil level isn’t dropping appreciably, but about every other flight I’ll notice a small streak of oil on the back of the crankcase.  I’m going to have the seal replaced this month.  There’s a great A&P here at Langley who knows engines and will let me work with him—I think that’s the best thing to do right now with me not knowing as much as I should about the engine.

The brakes have been working great—I haven’t found any fluid leaks on the right side.  I haven’t adjusted the rudder pedals for my legs yet, so it’s kind of an awkward dance for me to work the rudders just right, but it isn’t bad.

I really appreciate the panel you set up.  We’ve taken a couple 3 hour flights now, and it’s easy.  I wish everything I flew was as easy to use and reliable to navigate with.  The Dynon is a little piece of magic—I love that thing.  The Garmin works extremely well, and is very easy to navigate with.  The Anywhere Map acts up every once in a while and freezes up, but I backed up the software on my home computer and have been trying to free up the memory in the iPaq, and it’s been working well since.  I’ve been using FltPlan.com and AeroPlanner.com for online flight planning, and that has worked extremely well.  I’ve been keeping logs of my airspeeds/altitudes and my end of flight fuel burn, and my VariEze profile on the flight planning software is starting to be very accurate.

The autopilot is amazing.  Sadly enough, I’ve never flown with such a capable system.  The best we have in the F-15 is a wing-leveler—and I can count the number of times I’ve used it.  Flying with the autopilot in 500EZ, I don’t know how I’ve lived without it before.  I flew the first few times without ever turning it on, and around the 5th flight or so I figured I’d turn it on and see what it could do.  Needless to say, I was pretty impressed!

Takeoffs and landings are getting pretty good.  The takeoff is easy—this plane is fast and wants to fly.  Landings have all been safe thus far, and I’m getting better at working a good approach.  I’ve found that this plane tends to float a lot more in ground effect than I’m used to—it’s almost like doing a regular fighter approach into a General Aviation flare where you anticipate that ground effect.  The techniques you gave me on keeping the nose up and using the speedbrake were easy to integrate into my habit patterns—especially with the way you set up the HOTAS on that stick.  I’m loving it.

I saw your recent posts on ez.org—I’ve been watching that forum and others closely for a few months now.  As your buyer, I can verify that I was very pleased to know the exact capabilities of the aircraft—the good and the bad.  There have been no disappointments, and I got into this knowing exactly what to expect.  I think the canard community is like every other great aviation group—it only stays good if the pilots take the time and expend the effort to regulate themselves.  The simple fact is, canards are slick, fast planes.  That makes them dangerous to people who don’t have experience with flying tail first and fast—any newbie such as myself.  Misrepresenting a plane—particularly one that doesn’t have standard safety improvements—is a disservice to the canard community and the buyer because it starts the chain of events that leads to an accident that hurts the new buyer/pilot and looks bad for the whole community.  Thanks for being one of the experienced dudes with the wherewithal to raise the flag on that issue.  And thanks for selling me your great plane!"....


--------------------------------------end quote---------------------

hey guys,
 
  i STILL DONT SEE  how BLINDLEY Attacking A FELLOW CANARDIAN has anything to do with SAFETY...
    I WONDER IF A ANYONE WHO POSTED AND STARTED THIS STRING EVER SAW THIS PLANE  IN PERSON?.....
  ONLY ONE PERSON MENTIONED " MORALE"....YUP>>...THERE IT GOES.
   "May the first one without sin cast the first stone"
   I AM SO LUCKY...THAT THE EZE PEOPLE I KNOW ..WOULD NEVER BEHAVE LIKE LIKE THIS SPECIALLY TOWARD  A FELLOW EZE PERSON..
 
  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

I don't know why I'm responding to this but I will.  Ugg!

It wasn't a "blind attack", I asked the seller about it on ebay and he ignored my request for more information on the subject.  I then made the post with what I will admit were assumptions.  Once that happened, there were a number of people and yes, some with FIRST HAND experience with that particular airplane.  Others spoke to the seller who (to them) had no idea what he was talking about.

The seller probably received a number of follow up questions about the plane which most likely prompted him to end the auction early since there was obviously something misleading in the description.

If the auction was accurate, why wouldn't the seller say so?  I would have personally ate crow and stood up to say that I was wrong.  I even said that if I was wrong, I'd buy the plane.

You mention morale?  How in the world can you say that as though I lack morals in this case.  My only intent is to keep someone from getting the screws put to them and possibly ending up getting hurt or worse.  The morality of this lies upon the seller.

You post here with an aggressive attitude and it's your right to do so, honestly I respect your opinion but who the heck are you?  Did you post under an alias because you are afraid to sign your name?  Do you not believe what you are saying?  Is it that you have a vested interest in this particular airplane and are biased?  I don't know if any of that is true but I have to admit that It's a curious matter when this was your first post on this board and you don't sign your name.  In other words, it's difficult to place any value on anonymous comments.

You say that you are lucky that your EZ buds wouldn't treat you this way?  You think so?  I have great difficulty in believing that for one moment.  The EZ folks that I've come across (and that's a whole lot of em!) have saved my bacon more than one time.  Guess what though?  Do you actually think that my butt was saved by people telling me things that "I wanted to hear?"  Nope, it was a reality check and the big old BS flag waving in my face.  

I owe these guys my life for their candor and I fully expect to repay that debt.  If your EZ pals won't do that for you, I'm very sorry and dismayed to hear that, I simply don't believe that is true.

You wouldn't "BEHAVE" like what?  You would let a pilot strap into an airplane that you weren't certain about?  An airplane that the seller misrepresented?  An airplane where very respected people KNEW FOR SURE wasn't a safe airplane?  If you knew of these issues, you would allow one of your EZ pals to strap in?  Who sir has a problem with morals?

The last thing I thing I'll mention is that I sign my name when I write something.  It's because I am stating what I feel in my heart to be the truth at least from my perspective.

I'll sleep fine tonight....

How about a totally different method but with a quicker warning and possibly a more solid indication.  I would think that there is a possibility that a couple of things might go wrong with the insulation to ground method mentioned above.  First of all, if it got hot enough the wire could fail thus opening the circuit and NO WARNING at a bad time.  The ground with insulation could fail if the ground moved away from the conductor so unless the ground would wrap around the entire wire...

Just food for though but here's another way.  You take a low amp 12volt relay that is normally closed.  You use the current on the system to hold the circuit open with a test switch to close the circut and test the warning system.  The trick would be the "fire loop"  That conductor would be .040 solder or a similar type of material.  As long as the low current on the conductor doesn't melt the fire loop it maintains the closed circuit and keeps the relay energized.  If the engine bay gets HOT, that solder would melt away and allow the relay to de energize and thus close the fire loop warning circuit. Buzzer, Lights etc.  This way the system is designed to indicate a hot bay at the failure of the conductor unlike doing it the other way around where the indication requries an "in tact" conductor.

It's a wag but it might work that way too.

Spy said, "IT IS NOBODYS BUSINESS. BUT THE BUYER AND THE SELLER
"

Sir, I respectfully disagree with you on this point.  It is certainly everyone's business to waive the bs flag when it is warranted.  I said it in my post, I'd be the first guy to stand up and say that I was wrong.  In fact, if I'm wrong about that plane I'd buy it!

Consider for a moment that your best friend wanted to buy an EZ and you knew (or suspected) that it simply wasn't up to the advertisement of the aircraft.  You wouldn't tell him about it?  I certainly would; it would be criminal for anyone to stand by and allow that type of sale to commence without due warning to prospective buyers.  

We had a miserable year with regards to safety in the Canard Community.  We must all do our part in making 2006 a MUCH more successful year on that front.   Can you honestly say that it's not anyone's business except the buyer and the seller?  

I said it before and I'll say it again.  I respect the opinions of those who disagree with me... my statements above are simply my opinion.