Inventorying the Feather Lite Order

1 May 2012 — Today I tore into the downstairs room that will become the second of two shops here in Germany. The main build shop will be in the single car garage. The glass cutting, prep and small layup shop will be downstairs in my house. It has a fairly large window that vents out to the outside, so ventilation is ok.

I have three (3) large boxes from Feather Lite currently sitting in this room. I cracked the boxes open not only out of shear curiosity, but to ensure all the pieces were there and make sure there wasn’t any visible damage. Two of the large boxes contain the foam cores for all my Long-EZ’s flying surfaces: Wings, Upper & Lower Winglets, Roncz Canard & Elevators. [This order also included the Main Landing Gear Bow, which can be partially seen in some of these pictures]

The third large box contains the Upper & Lower Carbon Fiber Cowling halves that were originally designed by Mike Melvill and made off the composite plugs he designed. The CF cowling weighs around 13 lbs, so its almost half the weight of the original glass cowling.

Feather Lite Order Inventory - Cowling Plans

Included in the large boxes were smaller pieces for the cowlings and the instructions on how to configure the cowlings to maximize engine cooling. It’s cool thinking how these cowlings have such a significant part in the history of the Long-EZ!

Project Update

Posted on 14 February, 2024 by Airdog

Hey Guys,

I’m happy to report that the install of all the internal CF baffles is complete, including the final gap fills around the edges to ensure minimal air leakage.

As I’ve noted previously, all the exhaust pipes have been welded, with the required trimming of all the exhaust pipes to length coming soon. I’ll caveat the exhaust pipe effort with the fact that I may need some welding on the ends of these pipes to get them pointed in the right direction, but I’m of course hoping not. In addition, I have 2 compression style EGT probes from GRT on hand and will need to have the stainless steel threaded bungs welded to the exhaust pipes to mount those specific probes.

The convergence of a few intertwined components I spoke of before is STILL slowly coming to fruition, which will set me up to be nearly done with the entire engine install, sans the firewall (at this time). With the CF inner baffles now installed, I can turn my focus on finalizing the aft lower side of the engine aluminum baffle install. That will, in turn, allow me to identify where the bottom cowl cross rib baffle/stiffener needs to get glassed into place.

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

Feather Lite Order

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