My Home Page

I purchased my Cozy Mark IV from Al Belcher of Sturgis, SD. The project was
in chapter 7 of the plans, working on the exterior. I found out about this
project by reading the Canard Forum almost everyday. My original idea was to
buy the plans around Christmas of '05, and start the build in the spring of '06,
but this deal was too good to pass up. I got not only the fuselage with the
bulkheads installed, but it also came with skinned wings, skinned canard, main
spar complete, foam cores for the elevators and winglets, and the turtleback,
along with other assorted items from Aerocad.

I drove from Memphis to Chicago to meet Al with the plane. I told him
that as soon as I complete the project and fly off my 40 hours, I'll make
Sturgis, SD. my first trip so he can have a ride in it. He gave me his
plane, and I gave him my money. Then, believe it or not, I got in my
truck and drove non-stop to Memphis. The round trip that day, including
the 5 hours I spent in Chicago, took 22 hours. THOUGHT I WAS GONNA
DIE!

The bulkheads are built and installed per plans, I thought. Unfortunately, the plans, (Second Edition), call for
bulkhead F-28 to be positioned at 5.9 inches aft of F-22 (forward face to forward face). My F-28 bulkhead is at
5.625 inches. A later revision to the plans now have you install the F-28 at 6.25 inches aft of F-22. Because I'm not
the originator of this project, I'm being very careful to check everything as I go. This situation is going to require me
to cut out the offending bulkhead and relocate it.
I've also discovered that the F-22 bulkhead is positioned too high on the upper longerons! Ugh! Time for some
serious work to correct this problem.

If you look close (picture to the left), you can see that the top
of bulkhead F-22 is slightly higher (about 1/2") than flush with
the top of the upper longerons, as prescribed in Chapter 6 of
the plans. The canard cut out that is done in Chapter 7, gets
it's horizontal cut at W L 18.9. This means I will have to cut off
part of the material on the upper horizontal portion of F-22. I
don't see any major problem with doing so.

The picture to the left shows two sets of green lines. The inside
set of lines marks the existing position of F-28. The outside set of
lines are where the actual canard cutout is to be. I'll cut F-28 out
of the fuselage and relocate it to it's proper position.