The Long EZ is a Fast and insanely Fuel Efficient Airplane To Own

so it's very responsive it's exceptionally responsive yeah you're not videoing right now are you uh [Music] [Music] wow that's a that's an amazing field she won't have an issue getting a job in that field really High School band all right today we have Matt and his amazing Lon easy right here Matt how long have you been flying Jersey and they didn't fly for about 18 years between 2000 and 2018. as the case goes with aviators I got a divorce I started flying again and this is I think what now the fifth plane that I've owned since I started flying again five years ago and so of all the aircraft why a lawn easy was the choice of aircraft for you so the first time I saw this plane was at the Sussex air show in the late 80s there was a gentleman that flew these in an aerobatic performance along with Leo Loudoun stalker and as extra and the French Connection and Bob Hoover and I thought this is an engineer's airplane so I started as an airspace engineer and if you look at it it's like a spaceship yeah I thought it was a super cool it's completely different and I thought one day I would really love to own one and that that happened last August and prior airplanes that you've owned up leading up to this what were some of those so when I started flying again I bought an rv3 that was originally owned by pathy Boyington a little single seat tail dragger that was a ton of fun wow then a partnership and a Comanche 235 sorry Comanche 260 and a Cherokee 235 I sold the rv3 got a glass R1 RG flew that about 400 hours in two years sold that last summer and then there was a guy on the field at Spaceport that had this plane I saw it at the at the uh the fuel pumps I'm a very very shy person so naturally I went over and said hey is that your plane that's really cool I've always wanted one or are you willing to sell it and it's like actually I am and so that just it it turned out to be a little bit of uh you know Providence there that to find a good one on the field that it just sort of fell into my lap and I thought wow that's sort of meant to be I really do need to try this yeah and I've flown at about 170 hours since August now this was originally designed by the legendary boot Rattan correct and he was I mean the guy was way ahead of his time he designed the aircraft that flew around the world and but this particular one these are Lon easy is known for characteristics such as efficiency and speed sure what what about this airplane that did you like the design did you like the performance what what about it that really just kind of I want that plane yeah I mean the design was a major part of it there's nothing else out there that looks like it other than you know some copycats velocities Etc but from from uh from from the design perspective it's very unusual and that sort of fits my sort of Personality as well I thought yeah let's let's try it out it is known for insufficiency um it is quite quick it cruises anywhere between 140 and 170 knots depending on how hard you want to push it it does only have a fixed pitch prop so it's limited by some efficiencies there the nose gear does retract as well kind of looks like a spaceship oh it does and really for me as well it's the bubble canopy it's the it's the feeling that you're one with the airplane the tandem seating so that you write on the center line um and other than art Wing that you have up front here the visibility is obviously insanely good and you won't find anything like that in a any kind of certified aircraft a piper or a Cessna or anything like that now this Canard design I mean this is what probably sets us apart for the rest this I've heard multiple indications that does not inherently stall the nose just lowers is that that's correct it's actually set up so that it will not stall you can't stall it and it's the the way that it is designed and set up is that it'll just sort of mush and then the notes will drop and you'll get a sort of a porpissing kind of up and down but you it's possible if you were to do something really screwy yeah you can get it into a deep stall it doesn't want us you don't want to spin these airplanes and so you do still have to treat them with a certain amount of respect uh in that regard but um and it doesn't love to fly slow either so you know you want to keep that nose down on approach and you know it's more of a cross-country sport aircraft I would say yeah than something you're going to go and fly do a lot of touch and goes in a day just to go and fly for him yeah well let's walk around and some of the characteristics obviously I know you've added or the VG's have been added to this does that just help with slow speed controllability or it does yeah it is the slow speed to climb and when you're a little bit slower on your approach and this so you know there's the VG's both on the Canard and then also on the main way and you also have these added what would you call these the uh these are called fences fences and what they do is at a hiring I will attack it keeps the the airflow um going forward to back over the wing as opposed to sort of spilling it down uh towards the outside of the wing and that again is is for um to make sure that you have the lift attached to them now fuel capacity what how many gallons does this hold this is approximately 50 gallons and 52 actually I believe most of it's usable um I haven't tested it's probably a good theory consumption perspective if I'm flying at 10 to 12 000 feet at 2400 RPM I'm burning probably seven gallons an hour and what does this give you you can go well over a thousand nautical miles of range in on the current setup wow that's amazing and if you want to fly to 100 knots pull the power back about under 2000 RPM and it's burning under five gallons an hour you can just Cruise all day long wow this obviously for some that are not used to this is called a pusher configuration that is correct okay and what motor do you have in this particular airframe this is a Lycoming io320 okay so it's fuel injected has dual lugs it's really nice they're iridium spark plugs ngks and I just replace them every year really yeah they're they're inexpensive they're about five bucks a plug um great the electronic ignition on this one is self-supporting over around 900 RPMs so if you were to lose um and continue to the engine will continue and you're about a you said 160 horsepower this is 150 horsepower 150 horsepower if it were a lot of the 320s will do 160 but that's typically when you have a constant speed prop okay and you can get that for your takeoff power and they're limited to you know 150 usually but this has a Cato [Music] um climb prop on it which is I think really necessary to have here at altitude that makes sense because we're I mean on a good day seven thousand feet on a hot yeah so the Spaceport is 5500 feet and almost every single day of the year your density altitude is going to be above that in the summer it's easily eight yeah very often so I would say that at the altitude here of 320 150 horsepower is pretty good idea I think for long easies a lot of these were made with originally designed with 235 so about 108 horsepower and they're fine I think it's sea level but here at altitude you want to fly those on probably cooler days a little bit lighter now I noticed that this you only have one control service being the ailerons this is yeah there's the ailerons and then uh there's the the elevators is is part of the Canard and then the individual right here so no flaps no flaps so I mean when somebody looks at this aircraft and like you have no flaps how what's your basis of slowing it down how do you do approach speeds from your cruise speeds so to slow it down you want to get it below 100 knots indicated first uh that's the speed at which I'll drop the nose gear you can see it's pretty flimsy it doesn't do much for drag but I do have a retractable speed break under the belly um I can show that too if you're yeah and and what that does is it it adds a lot of drag um to it as well and you know you're in the Rudders are individually uh controlled so you can stomp on both of the rudder pedals and then get additional braking um from these from that yes how does this handle with crosswinds I've learned I've lent in um I don't think I'd want to try much more than that okay uh but it's it's it's controllable it just takes a little bit while you want to get used to the performance how it handles in there I wouldn't say go off and start flying in 20 knot Crosswinds that's right and yeah and since it comes in relatively hot um it's smarter to use to use have a little bit of headwind especially in on on takeoff it the the takeoff rolls on these are a little bit longer than what you'd expect in a Cessna and what's your usual liftoff speed that you aim for so so he so the the the manual will specify somewhere in the 65 to 70 knot rotation speed which is a little bit higher than you'd find in a Cessna might be a 172 is about 55 knots here at altitude because of the the triumvirate of less power less lift less thrust on the prop I will typically rotate around 75 to 80 knots indicated so that I get a nice positive pitch up and then climb out as opposed to sort of having to accelerate with the induced drag as you rotate close to the ground so today for example I think with about half tanks and just me on board so maybe 1400 and 1450 pounds weight I used about 2500 feet coming out of Spaceport so they use a decent amount of runway for takeoff and is the same for landing Landing you can as the thing you can get yourself into trouble because you can get it slowed down and you can fly it at 70 knots on Final if you'd like I typically will do about 80 knots slowed down about 75 to 80 over the numbers and then I'm touching down about 65 knots on the thousand Footers um you can come in slower and land on the numbers and get it stopped within 1500 feet and easy you just won't necessarily be able to get back out again yeah good point and it does have grope breaks so they're um spectacularly powerful they're very strong strong brakes some of the best I've ever had on any airplane and let's see the speed brake system and then we'll take a I notice you have avionic updates on this that are seldomly seen on a lot easy which is nice to see in this news so go ahead this nose wheel is obviously free castering it is yeah the nose wheel right now is down just a little bit we're up a little bit because of the way it likes to tilt back on its tail with no one in it and so the just casters like that and everything is done by differential braking um all the Turning speed brake is controlled electrically as well as a switch here you just hold it down and it comes down in about 8-10 seconds so at that setting is it pretty noticeable the amount of I mean the braking Effectiveness when you're in the air yeah it makes a big difference okay it makes a massive difference I I've I've landed just to see what it'll be like without it and you come in just a lot shallower and you have you know your sink rate is going to be significantly less and can you land with that on or do you need to disengage that immediately on Final I mean your ability I land with a with the speed breakdown you do yeah okay okay that's good to know and obviously this is your elevator it's completely reversed from your standard airplane correct yeah that's that's pitching up wow and then has electric trim as well so on takeoff I said it right about there and so that'll give me the the about the correct angle of the nose up once I start my initial climbing and you obviously have done some nice upgrades too I think my favorite part about the lawn easy is how pilot oriented you know it's like uh I call it like the civilian F-16 but with a prop you have the side stick design which that's amazing and do you like flying with that versus a center stick I love it okay yeah that's great and what have you done as far as avionics so these avionics were in here when I bought the airplane okay this is a diamond Skyview touch um so it is a touch screen and it also has you know buttons on the bottom as well um has remote transponder adsb in and out it also has a single axis autopilot that's also controlled through the diamond here for example there's your autopilot right there wow so you have autopilot in this that's nice you can put it it would support a second axis for pitch okay that's amazing and this is a Garmin Garmin radio and uh a backup Garmin era GPS that's that's a little bit old it's the ring taking that out just space for my iPhone and is this IFR capable it is it is and have you done much IFR with it and you know for the average person this is a pretty good I guess a Poinsett appeal about this it's a really good cross-country type of plane it is absolutely you can cover a lot of ground um storage wise you know someone asked well I want to have a suitcase or I need a bag what what are your options I know that you see some with pods [Laughter] that goes through to the front as well okay so you get a backpack yeah you could you could throw something small in there uh put some underwear in a Ziploc bag the toiletries that just shove it in there it's you can't fit anymore but it does also have attachment points okay I have a couple of baggage pods that are so you can get quite a bit of stuff in there too but same thing you know it's it you'll you'll have to do pack them individually like you know grocery store bags or whatever and shove them in there um they'll take a take some speed off of it probably 10 to 15 knots I've not I've not used them the previous owner didn't use them either they were used at some point it's just uh I think that unless you have a a reason to go somewhere and you have someone in the back and you have a lot of stuff most people you don't see them on there that's a that's understandable but it's not it's very nice that that I have that because they're fairly rare to find as well that's amazing well let's go uh take it for a spin and uh see what it's like characteristic wise in the air you got it okay third prop het visibility one zero zero two clouds eight thousand one five thousand scatter two zero thousand scattered temperature one four two point four altimeter three zero two eight official approach landing on departing runways one two left and right notice to Urban hazardous weather information for Colorado concerning States available I'm just gonna do run up here sounds good in fact Northbound India thank you 713 uniform ground Roger Runway uh one two left via Romeo seven Alpha once you left the Romeo seven Alpha 7128 uniformly speed Breakers uh two years down autopilot is off pictures [Music] frequency one two five point one two squat two seven seven zero uh we're going northbound November 7128 uniform Metro Terror Roger Runway one two left pick for takeoff left and approve North all right one two left flavor takeoff left turn to the north [Applause] ready to go celebrity [Applause] we're rolling foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] x-ray flight Metro Terror Roger uh Runway three at Alpha lineup and weight waiting for eign so what do we do with speed wise right now uh right now we're doing a 155 knots true at 2500 rpm and about 160 over the ground wow [Music] you know a common question would be like how does this handle with turbulence it handles turbulence pretty good actually [Music] yeah so uh what ends up happening with it is because of uh two lifting services [Music] uh as opposed to one that has to balance it in the back um you get the turbulence will just sort of be kind of like an up and down movement as opposed to having any kind of weird pitch up set oh okay so it's very responsive it's exceptionally responsive yeah you're not videoing right now are you uh it's amazing how much ground you can cover yeah no kidding what are we about 180 degrees turned back to the uh towards the mountain right chair uh left turn please left turn Okay and then you're gonna have to press a little bit on the pitch it does a little bit as you uh you're doing nice now on uh altitude that's great I see what you mean by hardly any control movement yeah you know when you get into the turn though it does require a little bit of uh a little bit of attack a little bit but not too bad that's nice I don't know if you can see the altitude but you're doing great spot on 7500 to take off and climbing through 6 500 Southbound Metro Tower along easy 7.2 uniform uh is one five miles to the Northwest Landing India foreign [Music] until no no zero eight kilos on the practice rnf one two left and we had to break off a little bit for traffic we'll be we're just about close to Marshall Lake inbound close up 24 Victor with the southbound approved issues caution traffic outside the airspace not on frequency 6900 indicated just one mile south of you uh good flight s as long as you do eight uniform no delay exiting the runway please turn left one able contact round one all right we're going off now here uh contact Round Rock [Applause]

Channel: Sir Drifto

Views: 466,041

Keywords: long ez, burt rutan, fast airplane, fast cheap airplane, affordable planes, weird airplane design, strange airplane, rutan, vari ez, experimental aircraft, fast aircraft, aviation channel, pilot, pilot channel, aircraft lovers

Id: lWGjFHXNJWw

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023