Rutan Long EZ

[Sapphire]

http://www.cozy1200.com/geeklog/filemgmt_data/files/Long-EZ%20POH.pdf

 

Above is the manual for the Long Eze. The lyco 0-320 is not a recommened engine for this a/c. It would not have been extensively flight tested with this engine. When you say "mods" do you mean directives? There is a Long- Eze for sale in Aust. asking $70000 plus. In USA they can vary 20 to 40 thousand asking depending a lot on engine hours. Since parity of the AUD and USD, value of planes here have dropped a lot.

 

 

[Scotty]

http://www.cozy1200.com/geeklog/filemgmt_data/files/Long-EZ POH.pdfAbove is the manual for the Long Eze. The lyco 0-320 is not a recommened engine for this a/c. It would not have been extensively flight tested with this engine. When you say "mods" do you mean directives? There is a Long- Eze for sale in Aust. asking $70000 plus. In USA they can vary 20 to 40 thousand asking depending a lot on engine hours. Since parity of the AUD and USD, value of planes here have dropped a lot.

Thanks for the link, a very interesting read. By "mods" i did mean directives. Do you know where i would be able to find them? Im very curious as to why he fitted such a large engine when they are known to have overweight issues anyway. Hes wanting $30 000 for the aircraft. A bit too much i think seeing as it has a high time 20 yr old non recommended engine fitted to it and is un registered and basically unproven/tested. (airframe time is 1 hour total). Im very intersted in this aircraft design but am thinking unless you could get for a bargain low price it may pay to stay clear of it. What do you reckon? Thanks for all you help.

 

 

[Sapphire]

Is that Long Eze the one advertised in Jandakot? Rutan has years of newsletters on the development of the Varieze some where on the internet? I learned some time ago to be patient in buying anything. Buy in haste and repent in leisure. Plenty of a/c sitting in sheds for decades but not economical to fix. Even a 0 hour 20 year old engine will leak like a seive and have internal rust. Wait for him to go down with the price. if you want a high labour project.

 

 

[Scotty]

Is that Long Eze the one advertised in Jandakot? Rutan has years of newsletters on the development of the Varieze some where on the internet? I learned some time ago to be patient in buying anything. Buy in haste and repent in leisure. Plenty of a/c sitting in sheds for decades but not economical to fix. Even a 0 hour 20 year old engine will leak like a seive and have internal rust. Wait for him to go down with the price. if you want a high labour project.

Yeah its the one in jandakot. Have you had a look at it? Being a LAME the amount of labour required is not a problem but i am worried about the engine. Being a 2000hr 20 yr old engine worries me. It would definately need an overhaul and that can be big bucks. The aircraft would need a complete going over and this just means the cost will go up.

 

Like ou said i might have to wait it out and see if he drops his price......a lot!

 

 

[Sapphire]

Amazing, and I visualized you being at some lonely spot thousands of miles away. I have seen the fuselage at his premises-live within walking distance. The Narrogin Gliding Club overhauled their Pawnee Lycoming and cost about $45000. Even the 447 and 503 Rotax cost thousands in parts and last only 300 hrs. The converted Vw engine is supposed to be cheap to overhaul and has a tbo of about 1200 hrs. Another option is to import one from the USA like I did with the Varieze. At Oshkosh there were long rows of Long Ezes but only counted 3 Variezes. Though, its pretty expensive if you go over to have a look and it's no good. Guys do up these engine with cheap old parts then sell them as being zero time overhauled. Lucky to last 200 hrs. Well Scotty, buying or selling a/c needs a lot of patience-like years. I am looking around for another one, but in the meantime bought a sailboat for thrills. Going from 150 kts to 6 kts will take some getting used to.

 

 

[Scotty]

Amazing, and I visualized you being at some lonely spot thousands of miles away. I have seen the fuselage at his premises-live within walking distance. The Narrogin Gliding Club overhauled their Pawnee Lycoming and cost about $45000. Even the 447 and 503 Rotax cost thousands in parts and last only 300 hrs. The converted Vw engine is supposed to be cheap to overhaul and has a tbo of about 1200 hrs. Another option is to import one from the USA like I did with the Varieze. At Oshkosh there were long rows of Long Ezes but only counted 3 Variezes. Though, its pretty expensive if you go over to have a look and it's no good. Guys do up these engine with cheap old parts then sell them as being zero time overhauled. Lucky to last 200 hrs. Well Scotty, buying or selling a/c needs a lot of patience-like years. I am looking around for another one, but in the meantime bought a sailboat for thrills. Going from 150 kts to 6 kts will take some getting used to.

Yeah, I used to overhaul lycomings when I was working at jandakot airport. That engine has the potential to be very expensive as they corrode up the cranks and camshaft. This will bump the overhaul cost up by about 10 000. Have you had a close look at the aircraft at all? I'm coming down to jandakot next week so I'm going to try and have a look at it then.

 

 

[Sapphire]

You still seem keen-guess now it's a matter price. I just had a look at some of it's performance figures. Fifteen hours endurance on 52 gal. petrol flying economy cruise at 130 kts giving nearly 2000 mile range. Thats the approx endurance of a 747. If you like to cruise, that's your plane [if you can sit that long]. I did not look much at the Long Eze in Jandakot. It was pushed up to a wall with lots of misc. stuff. The plus side is you can do certified work on the engine but you don't want to give your time away. Say you pay $30000 for the plane and do $45000 work on the engine[in value] the plane would cost you $75000[including your tiime] Calculating what it's resale value is at that point is hard to determine since there are few around here. Those a/c are not so popular here because of the runway requirements. People phoned me up if they can fly it off their 600 foot grass farm strip. In the USA they have lots of long paved runways. Finding a buyer can be very hard but lot's of dreamers. Also, pilots are importing a/c from USA because of their cheap price and big choice over there. If that Long Ezy at Jandakot was advertised for $15000 I would still be looking at knocking him down further. That's if it even passed further inspection on the airframe which is another story. They are all home make a/c and vary a lot in quality of workmanship. If the wings, canard etc are not accurately made and set up you can have a plane that has serious flight problems. If it was hardly flown, I would have concern on that fact alone.

 

 

[Scotty]

You still seem keen-guess now it's a matter price. I just had a look at some of it's performance figures. Fifteen hours endurance on 52 gal. petrol flying economy cruise at 130 kts giving nearly 2000 mile range. Thats the approx endurance of a 747. If you like to cruise, that's your plane [if you can sit that long]. I did not look much at the Long Eze in Jandakot. It was pushed up to a wall with lots of misc. stuff. The plus side is you can do certified work on the engine but you don't want to give your time away. Say you pay $30000 for the plane and do $45000 work on the engine[in value] the plane would cost you $75000[including your tiime] Calculating what it's resale value is at that point is hard to determine since there are few around here. Those a/c are not so popular here because of the runway requirements. People phoned me up if they can fly it off their 600 foot grass farm strip. In the USA they have lots of long paved runways. Finding a buyer can be very hard but lot's of dreamers. Also, pilots are importing a/c from USA because of their cheap price and big choice over there. If that Long Ezy at Jandakot was advertised for $15000 I would still be looking at knocking him down further. That's if it even passed further inspection on the airframe which is another story. They are all home make a/c and vary a lot in quality of workmanship. If the wings, canard etc are not accurately made and set up you can have a plane that has serious flight problems. If it was hardly flown, I would have concern on that fact alone.

Yeah, i have some serious doubts about it. I was thinking of offering a lot less that 15000 based on the fact that the whole thing is an unknown. The airframe is not tested and the engine is in need of an overhaul and maybe major component replacement. You would need to be prepared to loose all the money you payed for it if it turned out to be a lemon. The plus side is if it turned out ok you could have yourself a very cheap high speed cheap to run cruiser. Im looking for something to commute from geraldton to perth for two people thats quickish and cheap to run. Think i might let him sit on it for a bit after i check it out. The other plus with it is that it is composite construction so its not as much of a concern with corrosion up in geraldton as the alum aircraft suffer from.

 

 

[Sapphire]

Yeah, i have some serious doubts about it. I was thinking of offering a lot less that 15000 based on the fact that the whole thing is an unknown. The airframe is not tested and the engine is in need of an overhaul and maybe major component replacement. You would need to be prepared to loose all the money you payed for it if it turned out to be a lemon. The plus side is if it turned out ok you could have yourself a very cheap high speed cheap to run cruiser. Im looking for something to commute from geraldton to perth for two people thats quickish and cheap to run. Think i might let him sit on it for a bit after i check it out. The other plus with it is that it is composite construction so its not as much of a concern with corrosion up in geraldton as the alum aircraft suffer from.

Yeah Scotty, I personally would not buy a home made plane unless at least the owner would do a demonstration flight in it.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

excuse my ignorance but how do you determine if a composite plane has been damaged and repaired? and if the repair is sound

 

 

[503]

That aircraft has been on gumtree for a long time.

 

 

[Sapphire]

excuse my ignorance but how do you determine if a composite plane has been damaged and repaired? and if the repair is sound

 

Takes a very experienced person. When I had the preflight inspection done on my Varieze the examiner tried to look for some repaired damage. Couldn't point to anything and gave up. Yes it's been on Gumtree a long time.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Dunno about you blokes, but I have my eye on the the space ship on Ebay.

 

 

[Sapphire]

dazza, I hear that NASA's space shuttles will soon be government surplus for sale. You"ll need a special dough mixer as well to make up the solid fuel boosters. Other than that, it should be pretty conventional.

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

dazza, I hear that NASA's space shuttles will soon be government surplus for sale. You"ll need a special dough mixer as well to make up the solid fuel boosters. Other than that, it should be pretty conventional.

Bit of gliding experience and you should be fine!

[winsor68]

Bit of gliding experience and you should be fine!

Jabiru training would help...

 

 

[Scotty]

excuse my ignorance but how do you determine if a composite plane has been damaged and repaired? and if the repair is sound

If the repair has been done properly its pretty much impossible to determine the repair area unless you grind back down to the layers or fibre. From my experience repairing composite aircraft if you can see the repair its been done very poorly!

 

 

[downundertrucker]

Thought I'd chime in as im building a Cozy.. anyone can see the problems in your decision as you probably do yourself..In my opinion I would not buy that Long, it has many problems to say the least, 20yrs since it flew, engine is very suspect, the build quality is not known, it flew for 1 hour? maybe red flags there...wings or canard might have problems...Maybe the airframe might be ok, just ditch the engine and get something else..who knows? If you want a Long Ez or Varieze or Cozy, you could buy one from the States and get a better deal doing that...(share a container etc)...or if you are like me and like building stuff, the Open Long Ez plans are available for anyone...http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=6129

 

Just my 5cents

 

 

[Scotty]

Yeah i reckon its a bit of a lemon. There is just too much money to spend when you have noproof that it is a good flying example to start with. If only it had flown a few more hundred hours it would be a different story. There is that big risk that after you have spent your 20000 plus on the engine and the other expenses to get it on the VH register it might fly like a pig!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

much more fun to fly to the US and take a test flight before you put your cash down

 

 

[Sapphire]

Thought I'd chime in as im building a Cozy.. anyone can see the problems in your decision as you probably do yourself..In my opinion I would not buy that Long, it has many problems to say the least, 20yrs since it flew, engine is very suspect, the build quality is not known, it flew for 1 hour? maybe red flags there...wings or canard might have problems...Maybe the airframe might be ok, just ditch the engine and get something else..who knows? If you want a Long Ez or Varieze or Cozy, you could buy one from the States and get a better deal doing that...(share a container etc)...or if you are like me and like building stuff, the Open Long Ez plans are available for anyone...http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=6129Just my 5cents

Sharing a big container is quite cheap. The difference in price of sending a small container and a big container that can hold two planes is very small. How long will it take to build the Cosy, downunder?

 

 

[downundertrucker]

How long will it take to build the Cosy, downunder?

I'm on Chapter 13(nose) and 14(centre spar) at the moment. The main tub and nose is done and its on its main gear, haven't done much this winter, too cold for glassing, just getting back into it now. realistically I think I have another 2-3yrs to go...

 

 

[Ernest]

Hi Scotty, I too have an interest in purchasing a Long Ez so I read all the posts on this with interest. I should like to find someone here on the east coast who would be interested in taking me for a fly in their long Ez. If any of you gentlemen could put me in touch with other Long Ez owners I would be most thankfull. I live on the Sunshine Coast.

 

 

[Ernest]

Hi Scotty, I too have an interest in purchasing a Long Ez so I read all the posts on this with interest. I should like to find someone here on the east coast who would be interested in taking me for a fly in their long Ez. If any of you gentlemen could put me in touch with other Long Ez owners I would be most thankfull. I live on the Sunshine Coast.