My son and I got a first hand tour of a locals "3 three long eze and varieze yesterday.

Seems like a remarkable plane. 4 gph 180 knots. 1000 mile range

It was snug, but looked interesting.

The gentleman has 2300 hours in one of them alone

Fun airport kicking tires day

Could this be a cheap retirement option one day. Maybe
Mark

I’ve always had a soft spot for them and haven’t ruled out owning one eventually.

To me, they are probably one of the most successful plans-built experimentals out there. They certainly don’t rival kit builds, but there is something special about their history in the past days of homebuilt airplanes.

There used to be an active website called Canardzone that offered a lot of community support. I don’t think it’s active anymore but you can view the old threads.

Ary Glantz (google him) has a resourceful website chronicling his build. He also provides the clone of the Rutan plans, relabeled Open-EZ for liability purposes. Ary also has YT videos of earlier days of his project.

Very efficient airplane.

But I'd verify those numbers. They are very optimistic for 99% of the fleet.

I believe it’s more like 160kts at 6-7 gph.

The original Long EZ called for an O-235 which is 115hp. That’s about 6gph.

Many owners have put 135-150hp engines. A few have put 180hp and lengthened the nose for ballast.

Very efficient airplane.

But I'd verify those numbers. They are very optimistic for 99% of the fleet.

The yellow lettering plane has been tweaked for racing over the past 4 years. It’s a varieze
With an continental O200.

The blue plane is a long eze

Vari-EZ/Long-EZ

Cruise - very efficient

TO/Landing - marginal on hot day/high density altitude - longer runway rolls and flatter climb and descent than certified aircraft (of equivalent weight) at any condition (due to canard configuration)

You lose a little on the Max lift coefficient with a stall resistant canard design, but the real reason Rutan's canard designs require long runways and have flat climb angles (honestly, there's a Long-EZ at my home field that is only 300' high by the end of the 6,000' runway - spooks me every time) is that Rutan sized the wing(s) for cruise efficiency, not for short fields or low speed climb angle. It would be easy <ahem> to upsize the lifting surfaces and get much better short field and climb angle performance on these designs, but at the expense of cruise performance and economy.

The large-engined versions (O-320, not sure if anybody has tried to put a 360 in a Long EZ), that are a bit heavier and have higher minimum speeds (mush speed when the canard stalls), also have more kinetic energy in an off-airport landing. The performance bump is very nice though, according to a friend who commuted in one for a few years, soooooooo...


Everything in aviation and in life is a trade-off, just one more thing to consider.

I've thought about a lighter, faster, more effecient plane, but are they good instrument platforms and how do they handle turbulence?

I've got about 700 hours in mine. Love it! I've gone through a J35 and a C340, but still have the Long. Come for a ride (west of Philly)...

Better instrument platform than my J35 was. In smooth air, I've not touched the stick (single axis A/P only) and been within 50' in 50+ miles... The long wing and short span ailerons make it well behaved. Turbulence - not bad... The big winglets make the wing act like it's a lot longer.

Canard doesn't abruptly stall unless you're horsing it around. You just run out of pitch authority. Some will bobble slowly (3 - 5 second cycle). I can fly it down to the runway, stick full aft, and apply power just before touchdown to flare. Very safe - no stall to worry about unless you're pointing the nose up 30+ degrees - no need to do that.

300' by the end of a 6,000' runway? Something's not right. At the end of a 6k' runway, I can pull it to idle and return to land. I fly out of a 3,600' runway, 2,800' is around my minimum (brake/stop limited).

Mine's got an O-235. Not a ton of power, but if the airplanes are built how Burt designed them (light), they are GREAT airplanes. Burt said when you're building, if you're not sure whether to add something, toss it up in the air - if it comes back down, it's too heavy - leave it out. I've had mine to 17,500' with no issues. Mine is ~800lbs BEW. Too many are north of 900lbs.

I'll cruise at 150kts at ~4.4 GPH in the 10k' range. Very efficient. Mine went from Honolulu to Oshkosh unrefueled (with an 82 gallon ferry tank) in 1982. I think she's got 7 Pacific pond crossings. I've done western UT to central PA non-stop. Wide open, I can do around 205 mph at 5k'. And, I've still got another 10 - 15 knots of drag to get rid of (bad cowling, cooling drag, antenna and screws in the wind, etc...)

Varieze - light, typically an O-200. Very efficient, but small.
Long EZ - corrected a lot of the deficiencies in the Varieze. Long Range, O-235 - O-320 typical.
Cozy Mk 3 - 3 seat Long EZ (fat fuselage - basically the same wing and canard.) O-320, maybe some O-360's.
Cozy Mk IV - 4 seat Cozy. O-320 or O360.
Velocity - Not of the Rutan heritage, but part of the community - O-360 - O-540, some with retracts, etc...
Berkut - very high performance Long EZ derivative - Carbon fiber, molded, etc... O-360 to O-540, retract, etc...

Now, across the fleet, there's a lot of variations - Long's with retracts, Berkuts running nitrous, Turboencabulators, you name it! That's part of the fun though.

There's a huge contingent in CA, WA, and CO. There's a handful in construction today and a quite a few more being restored. We do a fly-in in Kanab, UT every year Labor day weekend - come on out. There's a few more fly-in's around the country throughout the year. We've got a pretty active community and Burt himself posts probably weekly on average. Awesome community support. I'm 30 miles west of Philadelphia (N57). Let me know and I'll show you mine. If you'll fit in the back seat (<180 lbs and 5'10") I'll take you for a ride.

I've built 3 of them, one was an OSH Lindy and Wright Bros Award winner with a Mattituck rat motor O-320, one was a slightly longer and wider fuselage with another Mattituck hot rod IO-360, and a third with a Lycon IO-340. All three flown both VFR and IFR

I have an aggregate 4,000+ hours in EZ's; if you have any questions, or are looking for real performance data...fire away.

Oh, it's LongEZ, not LongEZE. And Varieze...I know; go ask Burt.


N888EZ, my first EZ completed in 1983, now owned by a young SCALED Composites flight test engineer.

I salute you. Finishing one aircraft is beyond most people. Finishing three, with one being an award winner at Oshkosh is outstanding.

Which one (or ones) do you still have and what will you do differently on the fourth one? If I was going down that road, I'd be looking at a Cozy MK IV and would find a way to widen it a smidge. They are truly Cozy inside.

But if I could find a set of Defiant plans, and 5,000 extra hours to build it...

I salute you. Finishing one aircraft is beyond most people. Finishing three, with one being an award winner at Oshkosh is outstanding.

Which one (or ones) do you still have and what will you do differently on the fourth one? If I was going down that road, I'd be looking at a Cozy MK IV and would find a way to widen it a smidge. They are truly Cozy inside.

But if I could find a set of Defiant plans, and 5,000 extra hours to build it...

You can post and ask questions here (still active):

https://canardzone.groups.io/g/canard-aviators

You can also subscribe to the canard owners and builders association. More info here:

https://canardowners.com/content.aspx?p ... _id=391558