Watching your video proves to me that I am a flyer not a builder. I so much appreciate the incredible efforts that Builders go through to create these flying machines. I have Long EZ serial number 974. I absolutely love flying this plane. I fly everything from piston twins to citations, and nothing gets me as excited to go flying as when I get to go up in my Long EZ and “…dance, the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds…“. Thank you for connecting us flyers to a better understanding of the hard work that Builders go through.
I finished my longez over 25 years ago and it's still flying today. It had a standard lycoming 0-235 108 HP engine and weighed in at little over 1000 pounds (it was built in cold Calgary). You are going to have a fast and very safe fun aircraft when you're finished. I enjoy watching your build videos very much.
*Very* cool stuff, always wanted to learn to fly and build one of these, unlikely now. Good to see other people are still building EZ's. Some people kick ass at life, you rock man! Keep at it!
Dude you are moving right along. I wish I had more time. I started mine got as far as the fuselage had a baby and decided to stop the EZ and start a Cozy so I could take the whole family. I'm back to the fuselage state and can't seem to make progress as life and hurricanes are in my way. I'll get it done though. Great job.
Std rule in homebuilding - Build the wing parts first. If you do the fuselage first you spend a lot of time sitting in it dreaming about flights that may never happen. That, and you have to some work (even it is only 10 minutes) every day to avoid stalling. I've built a couple of my own designs, trust me, these are the Golden Rules.
No kidding. When my Dad and I built one, onlookers commented that we spent twice as much time building as we should have, just for the discussion (arguing sometimes), and post 'golly gee whizzing".
This was an awesome layup of the right wing, I noticed that you bought the foam wing from Eureka CNC. After watching the rutan video on how to cut the foam, Eureka CNC seems well worth the money.
Hot wiring them wasn't difficult, and was fun, actually, and they came out very nicely...1...2...3..etc. :-) The time consuming part was making all the templates, especially since I got all anal and did them in aluminum, and finished the wire guiding edges to about ball bearing finishes. I know they got passed on to another builder, and I hope after that down to many more, for all the work I put into them, I think it ended up being about a week, low part time except weekends full. We (he actually, I was AA bound pre engineering, close by community college style, at that point) also designed and built a constant temp power supply, based on wire resistance that worked very well. To give you a hint where and when I went to college and where we built (the closest large city), one day I walked out of Statics to a VERY strange contrail in the sky...I said NO WAY, even though I knew there was a high likelihood of it happening, as I knew and had discussed the program with some Shuttle engineers that were friends)...yup, about 30 seconds after the Challenger breakup, I estimated...I still remember that little chill/shake that kind of went through me. Seeing it is different than knowing it. Funny (sort of) story. We finished the second wing foam joining on a Sat eve and I went home. Dad (fellow builder) calls me at 3 AM and says that for some reason he woke with a start and remembered that we had forgotten to cut the holes for the antennas, etc...I'm thinking, Oh PEACHY. We were up til the next morning cleaning gooey epoxy off the joints, hot wiring through that mess (luckily they were small quick cuts) and remixing wet micro to join it all back together. Moral of the story. Even though you've already done ONE wing...check off the damned plans AGAIN the second time through each step, or bad things will happen. Luckily the only bad outcome of that little collective brain fart was a loss of a nights sleep...if he hadn't thought of it til well after knife trim stage, though, it would have been a MESS to fix. Seems obvious, I know, but what can I say. Two engineers, one build, and pretty much zero brain power being applied that day. Oh yeah, don't build when you are dog tired, either, if it's a critical portion or operation, especially. That got long...hey...Long...never mind.
I love this plane, was fortunate enough to get a couple of rides, but I don't think I have the desire for a build with this amount of work. Amazing plane though and I would love to build an ultralight in the future.
Parabéns pelo excelente trabalho que você tem feito. Eu sou João Silva e moro no Brasil, também estou construindo um cozy mark iv #1532. Vamos lá vamos colocar essas naves pra voar. Bom trabalho.
So these aircraft have a top and bottom main spar each made of fibreglass cloth ??? Is that all ? Don't they need an rigid wood or aluminum beam running through them ?
What do you think of 3D printed cross sections slid on a spar and then draped in fiber glass? skip most of the manual fabrication. Another obvious approach is mass produced cast styrofoam blocks so you just lego it together and drape it. Such a simple plane should not be years of building.
Following with interest. I bought my own Long EZ as a finished plane, so your well documented build is nice to learn from. Keep up the good work. When do you expect to finish it?
Awesome work! thanks for showing how are this composites foam wings made. where did you buy/got the plans or kit for the long ez? did you got the profiles too or just paper plans?
Noob question: Are the wings for Vari and Long the same dimensions? In other words could I buy a used Vari and then build a fuselage for a Long? Much respect to you the builder and Mr. Rutan!
The blue foam is contoured in various ways, such as cutting with an electric "hot wire", and lots of detail handwork. The foam remains "inside" the outer fiberglass layer. Oh, how I remember the many months I worked on my EZ. (I was a Scaled Composites engineer.)
