Initial Project Planning

Trying the Long-EZ on for Size . . .

6-9 March 2011 – After doing a fair amount of research I scrapped the idea of plunking down $19,000 for a Glastar kit in lieu of the Long-EZ Pay as You Build Plan! I mean, besides, everyone knows that you SAVE money by building your own airplane! HA!

Being a newbie, I had to know what I could cram on the instrument panel and what (or who) I could cram into the cockpit.

But, being a project manager in my job instilled in me some tendencies to plan this thing out a bit. I’ve seen too many real-world projects fall flat on their face due to failed planning. And worse yet, I’ve seen havoc wreaked because a majority of project planning was based on assumptions and/or gut instincts.

Having only been around a Long-EZ when I was about 13 years old, I wasn’t exactly sure how the feel would be in the cockpit. I had been to the airports around the area and hadn’t seen a Long-EZ, so I figured I would quickly build one myself! (Now that’s a plan!) I cut up some OSB flooring sheets to make a mock fuselage. I didn’t have enough OSB, but after a quick trip to Home Depot I was able to finish my fuselage mockup.

My initial fuselage mockup was just a little too short (in length & height). And more importantly, the stock width seemed just a little too narrow so I widened the fuselage mockup initially by 2 inches.

The 2-inch wider fuselage was better, but it actually felt a little too wide. I played around with different widths and plugged in the number for all the bulkheads to keep the width ratio the same and not mess with the fuselage’s shape.

Of course to build the fuselage, I had get acquainted with the plans and their layout in fairly short order.

I finally settled on a front seat width of 1.4 inches wider than what the plans called for. This width would give me a little more elbow room, but not so much that I felt like I was going crazy on the widening effort. After having a few buddies try out the back seat–and actually fitting!–I checked the block for the fuselage passing my size test!

So let’s build this puppy!

Project Update

Posted on 20 September, 2023 by Airdog

Hi Folks,

I’ll be heading out to RR23 in a few hours in the back seat of Marco’s beautiful Long-EZ, JT (I will say most likely for the last time!). Since I’ll be gone for the good part of a week I just wanted to provide an updated update before I head out to fun & frivolity with my fellow Canardians!

I’m happy to report that the major recontouring, reshaping and significant re-glassing (in CF) of the bottom cowling is complete! I still have the very aft center lip (at the top of the bottom cowl fin) to glass as well as the interfacing left & right sides between top & bottom cowlings. Once these tasks are completed then the optimized install of the exhaust pipes will begin.

As I’ve stated before, I currently have a plan with my local race car exhaust-making dude, James, to finalize the exhaust pipes’ install configuration. And I very much intend to optimize the exhaust pipe runs as they should be, in line with Mike Melvill’s exhaust pipe mods that brought the pipes inboard a bit closer to the spinner and focused on the very inboard section of the prop. He notes all this in CP 83 and the operational improvements of these mods are impressive. Since I have no choice but to rewicker the exhaust pipes anyway, I might as well make them as near-perfect as possible.

I’m still intent to focus solely on the plane for the next however long it takes to finish this bird… ASAP!

A Long EZ Push

The Building of Long-EZ N916WP