Composite Aircraft Construction workshop.
Last weekend I attended a workshop by the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) on how to build composite aircraft. This is the third such workshop I’ve attended with the intention of surveying the various forms of aircraft building before selecting a project to build (post house remodel). Besides keeping me off the streets and out of trouble for a few years, I hope to end up with an aircraft that supports my aviation goals.
So what do I want? Mostly to get into the air and fly obviously, but that implies a few things. One, I can afford to. So efficiency and low fuel burn is at the top of my list of requirements. I’ve even looked at electric flight, since that’s becoming more and more viable (with some real flying aircraft now up and running). However, like pure electric cars, the challenge is the battery and range. For short hops and recreational flying, it fits the bill, but I also want to go long distance, to, say, Minnesota.
So long range and efficient cruise is important. And I’d like something fun too. So I’m now back to looking at canard composite aircraft. These planes reverse the normal order of prop, wing and elevator. The large wing is in back, with a pusher prop/engine, and the elevator is in front. Ironically the Wright Flyer had this configuration, but what I’m looking at is far more advanced and flyable. It’s more like a jet fighter in appearance, or appropriately, a rocketship. Burt Rutan, now famous for SpaceShip One (and soon SpaceShip Two) designed many variants of this type of aircraft, including my current favorite the Long-EZ. Long for long range, ez as in anybody can build one. 1100 mile range, and with a modest ~100hp powerplant about 180mph cruise. This can get me to Minnesota in a day with one refuel stop, and burn less fuel than a car making the same trip (and in less than half the time).
The Long-EZ and it’s brethren are so efficient at gliding that at 50 feet off the ground during takeoff, going 120mph, you can cut the engine, pull up for altitude and then fly the entire pattern to land at the same airport. It’s so slick the design has a speed brake to allow for more rapid descent when necessary. This is pretty handy at times, my RC flying wing also glides so well that it’s occasionally difficult to land, so I appreciate the utility of a brake.
Ideally from my point of view, the practice wing section we built during the class was from the canard elevator of a long-ez. I can’t use it in any way but a trophy, but it was neat to be using the same profile templates to cut the foam and glassing it with a similar schedule as the real thing.
However, now that it’s possible to get CAD/CAM cut foam cores that are absolutely precise for the Long-EZ, I suspect that’s the route I’ll take rather than hand cutting them. It’s definitely worth the money to save both the time and worry, and the plane will more likely fly straight.
As practice I also made a bulkhead T-joint, which was nice yet not incredibly exciting, and a random clay-based shape (a rocket of course!) of fiberglass layup. So depending on how well the rocket shape cured (some of the corners were too sharp for the cloth) I might turn it into a trunk lid badge, since the orignal badge fell off my car a few months ago. I may paint it ala wallace and gromit’s rocket, and add some lights or something. Or, more likely, I’ll forget about it since I have a haus-remodel-of-death coming up.
