Status

Now it's March 2007 and I've been somewhat working on this for four years, coming up on five. Wasted a lot of time waiting to receive the landing gear strut and then having to return it to have the void fixed. In the mean time did some work on restoring the air conditioning on my 1971 Corvette and some other interior items. As you can see by looking at Chapter 9, I've got the landing gear strut back and have completed the first 4 ply UNI layup. I seem to become easily distracted from the project with family obligations and other hobbies, particularly motorcycling. I think motorcycling is the closest thing to flying you can do on the ground. Lynn and I have a ritual of riding every Sunday. On the weekdays I usually only have thirty minutes to an hour to work on the project. With commuting to work, (100 miles round trip) and trying to get an hour of exercise in, that's all that's left, since I need to get to bed by 10:00 pm to wake up by 4:20 am.

Well it's February 2004, been working on this for a little over a year and pretty happy with my progress considering all the other hobbies I like to do. I'm at the point of assembling the fuselage which is really getting me motivated to dedicate more time to the project, since it's actually starting to look like a three dimensional object. Lynn and I went to Copperstate again, not as big a turnout, at least not on the day we were there. But Nat was there and it was nice to talk to him and Shirley and ask questions. Nat was a little suprised with my progress, he said the fuselage tub should only take 6 months and that I must be distracted by other things. Couldn't argue with him there. So I'm trying to put in some time on the week nights because I'm realizing now if I don't pick up the pace this is going to be a fifteen year project. Anyway take a look at Chapter 6 and see what's going on.


In The Beginning

Although I was serious about the Cozy ever since Marc Zeitlin started building, John Slade is the culprit that finally got me to order the plans, which must be about 6 months ago.  Since then I've cleared out some space in the garage, built the monster table, sturdy enough for dancing elephants, and made the epoxy hot box.  Had a hell of a time finding a line voltage thermostat though, not a lot of baseboard heaters in Southern California for which they are normally used.  Ended up finding it on the McMaster Web Site for $13.00.  I've also ordered the materials for chapters 4 through 8 from Wicks, Cheri has been very helpful and saved me $70.00 just on the shipping.  So I'm anxiously awaiting my first shipment.  I plan on making the cloth cabinet this weekend and do some of the practice lay-ups (7/18/02).

See Prebuild Chapters 1 thru. 3  below for this weekends fun.  So far I still don't have any pictures to show, I ordered the least expensive (well almost, it was $60.00) 1 megapixel camera I could find.  I figured it will get blobs of epoxy on it so I wanted to spend as little as possible, hope I don't regret it.  Should be getting it this week. (7/23/02)

Received my first order of materials, like what others have said before, "is that it?" doesn't seem like enough to carry me through to Chapter 8. See the pictures in the Prebuild Chapter 1-3 below. (7/30/02)

Attempted the "Confidence Builder" practice layup and got some new shop equipment. See Prebuild Chapter 1-3 (8/20/02)


Introduction

Building an airplane has been a life long dream so the purpose of this site is to document the process of making this dream come true and  prove to the FAA that I did indeed build this wonderful machine.  I intend to have lots of pictures showing all the wonderful predicaments I get myself into, and I'm sure I can make mistakes no one else ever thought possible.



Background

I live in Southern California just inland of Malibu in a town called Calabasas.  I have the good fortune of being inspired by overflying Long EZs and Cozys almost every weekend, as there are quite a few based at the local smaller airports of Camarillo (CMA) and Santa Monica (SMO).  For the past sixteen years I've worked for Boeing/McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach as an engineer in propulsion systems.  Here in Long Beach we still build a more modern version of the DC-9 which is called the 717 and we also provide fleet support to the airlines for all Douglas Heritage airplanes which includes the DC-3.  As an engineer in a company as large as Boeing you don't get a lot of hands on work, so I believe I will really enjoy building the Cozy.  I have a private pilots license but am long overdue for a biennial flight review, so I haven't been flying for a couple of years.  For me it's difficult to maintain proficiency as a renter pilot, so another reason for building the Cozy.  I do plan to get the biennial done this summer since my wife, Lynn,  bought me a block of time at the local FBO.  I'm lucky in that respect as well, my wife is very supportive and has already asked when she can help me do some fiberglass lay-ups, she's even watched the Burt Rutan video tape.  We both have a little bit of prior composite construction experience in building a 17 foot ocean kayak.  The kayak is primarily built from marine okume plywood but the entire hull has a single ply of BID cloth as well as the cockpit interior.  The kayak took me about a year to build so I'm really going to have to pick up the pace on the Cozy. Our mugshot.  In May I got my first Cozy ride, a friend from work, Greg Haack bought a Cozy MKIII about a year ago and had been flying it, making improvements and  getting it to his liking and subsequently offered me a ride.  It was an outrageous experience we flew from Long Beach to Camarillo and back, about twenty minutes one-way (I think we were averaging about 160 knots) and Greg let me have the controls for most of the flight.  We did some steep turns, flew through some mountain passes and along the coast, it was a fantastic flight.  I'm definately spoiled now. Thanks Again Greg!