For the Discerning Man With Everything Else

I like…the taillights.

Tomb buggy

.

I'm thinking that, when pressed, this may have the same cornering issues as the Reliant Robin.

The Long-EZ is the same airplane that John Denver was flying when he met his demise. At least with a car conversion you can just pull over when you run out of fuel.

I actually had a ride in a Long-EZ many years ago. Very cool design.

Designed by Burt Rutan, it is layered fiberglass cloth over foam. Light, strong, and tough.

A couple facts about them:

They are VERY efficient on fuel and good handling.(They cruise FASTER than most GA planes)

With the canard up front, they are designed so the wing CANNOT stall.

They way the center of gravity is set, when you fly solo you can't just get out and walk away. You need to hold the nose or it will tip backwards. You must retract the nose gear and set the nose on the ground, then close the canopy.

On the aircraft John Denver purchased, the fuel tank selector was inaccessible to the pilot. It was in the rear seat(which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of). Experimental aircraft can get away with a lot of things that GA cannot.

John Denver was advised the plane needed fuel, and either didn't hear or simply ignored the advice. He ran out of fuel over the ocean I believe.

Here's a picture with the nose on the ground

@DannyP,  one of my coworkers was building a Cozy, which is a derivative of Long-EZ. He was planning on Mazda rotary power. If his building skills are anything like his controller skills, I wouldn’t get anywhere near him if he ever gets it flying!

@DannyP posted:

I actually had a ride in a Long-EZ many years ago. Very cool design.

Designed by Burt Rutan, it is layered fiberglass cloth over foam. Light, strong, and tough.

A couple facts about them:

They are VERY efficient on fuel and good handling.(They cruise FASTER than most GA planes)

With the canard up front, they are designed so the wing CANNOT stall.

They way the center of gravity is set, when you fly solo you can't just get out and walk away. You need to hold the nose or it will tip backwards. You must retract the nose gear and set the nose on the ground, then close the canopy.

On the aircraft John Denver purchased, the fuel tank selector was inaccessible to the pilot. It was in the rear seat(which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of). Experimental aircraft can get away with a lot of things that GA cannot.

John Denver was advised the plane needed fuel, and either didn't hear or simply ignored the advice. He ran out of fuel over the ocean I believe.

Way back when we were taught to fly a local instuctor gave a simple analogy about the dangers of flying. It's pretty safe to go for a walk down the road...less safe at night.. less safe again if you wear dark clothing, worse again if walk in the center of the road while intoxicated in a blinding snowstorm. You get the idea.

John Denver flew in a high performance airplane he was not familiar with, at low altitude near a bird sanctuary with birds the size of turkeys while low on fuel, near the ocean and he knew he'd have to transfer fuel via the transfer valve. The valve handle was not there so some idiot had attached a pair of vice grip pliers to use when necessary. When the airplane was recovered the vice grips were not attached to the valve.

A friend of mine could have been killed in an accident at our flying field recently. He was taking off in a recently repowered Hiperlite. He had just installed a rebuilt 447 Rotax replacing the lower powered 377 Rotax. Larger prop too. One lazy bugger blocked off the takeoff area by about 500 feet waiting for thermals to develop to go up in his powered glider. My buddy said " no sweat, no need to move your plane, I'll be off in less than 100 feet anyway" . That was his first flight with the additional power. He's a short guy and his feet won't reach the rudder pedals properly. He firewalled the engine ( not a good thing to do )  and after about 50 feet the plane jumped up in the air, went maybe 40 or 50 feet up and did a barrel roll to the right, hit the left wing tip while coming down to earth inverted and finally crashed, landing upside down. He was now trapped in the plane becuse you enter the plane from the top.....no way to get out and the gas cap is now leaking fuel. I yelled to the two glider guys for help and we ran out and  flipped the plane right side up with my friend still trapped inside. Broken nose and bleeding cheek was all he got. The plane was totalled.

There are old pilots. There are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.