Chapter 3 – UNI, BID… and next build?!

I left out of the house today at around 5:30 am on my approximately 6.5-hour trek to the Asheville, NC area to pick up a Cozy III fuselage tub and rolls of UNI, BID and Ceconite from Forest, who was just wanting it all to go to a good Canardian home… or at a least a Canardian that tries really hard!  haha!

The builder was the late Wayne Martin out of South Carolina, who was Forest’s father-in-law.  Apparently Wayne traveled quite a bit for his job (I can relate!) and ended up in Thailand for many years, thwarting his efforts of finishing his Cozy III build.

Although the build plans are no longer with the project (I have a PDF copy), Forest did give me a manila folder with some info docs on the Cozy III, a Cozy III (just “Cozy” at the time) POH, and the original contract from August 1986 citing that this is serial number 302.  Official pedigree even… that’s pretty cool —all occurring as I was about a half year into my 29 year Air Force career, having just graduated the Naval School of Explosive Ordnance Disposal (NAVSCOLEOD) and heading off to RAF Upper Heyford, UK.  Crazy how life plays out.

Admittedly, my primary incentive for making this trip was the copious amount of fiberglass that Forest was including with the Cozy III project.  EZ-ily enough to do one canard airplane, probably over two of them in my estimation.  There were 2 very large rolls of UNI, a medium roll of UNI, and a large roll of BID all included.  Oh, and a longer, bigger roll of what Forest told me was Ceconite (top of pic) … for covering rag wing airplanes.

It took us about 10 minutes to get situated and get the fuselage tub loaded into the truck, and another 10 minutes of loading the glass in the back cab of my truck and tying everything down (that’s Forest in the background).

There were clouds in the sky and I of course didn’t want the fiberglass in the truck bed, exposed to the elements, so into the cab it went.

I thanked and said goodbye to Forest, grabbed some lunch in Hendersonville, and then started my trek back home.  Well, to my hangar actually.  Due to a wreck in Raleigh, where I sat (trapped) virtually dead still on the Interstate for 45 minutes, I didn’t arrive the hangar until after 10 pm.  But I got everything unloaded there without event and then had a very late-night bite to eat with Jess at a sports bar in downtown Morehead City.

Back to the Long-EZ build!

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