The Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ is a tandem 2-seater

homebuilt aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

Rutan Aircraft Factory Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develo ...

. The Long-EZ has a

canard Canard is French for duck, a type of aquatic bird. Canard may also refer to: Aviation *Canard (aeronautics), a small wing in front of an aircraft's main wing * Aviafiber Canard 2FL, a single seat recreational aircraft of canard design * Blé ...

layout, a swept wing with wingtip rudders, and a pusher engine and propeller. The

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

has fixed main wheels with streamlined spats and a retractable nosewheel. Its predecessor was the VariEze, plans for which were first available to homebuilders in 1976. The prototype Long-EZ, N79RA, first flew on June 12, 1979.

Design

The Long-EZ was a scaled-up redesign of the VariEze predecessor, allowing for the use of readily available Lycoming aircraft engines instead of the Volkswagen-derived engines or hard-to-find small Continentals for which the VariEze was designed. Changes from the VariEze included a larger main wing with modified Eppler 1230

airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...

and less sweep, larger strakes containing more fuel and baggage storage, and a slightly wider cabin. The canard uses the same GU25-5(11)8 airfoil as the VariEze. Plans were offered from 1980 to 1985. There were about 700 FAA-registered Long-EZs in the United States in 2005, which had grown to 833 in 2021. In January 1985, it was announced that plans for a new canard were being offered, to eliminate "rain trim change" that had been experienced by Long-EZ pilots. This trim change is usually a nose-down trim change experienced when flying into rain requiring a small aft force on the stick to maintain altitude, which is easily trimmed out, using the bungee trim system. The new canard was designed with the Roncz R1145MS airfoil, which produces considerably more lift than the original GU25-5(11)8 airfoil. This enabled the new canard to be designed with less span, reducing wetted area and thus drag. The new canard has a negligible rain trim, and rain adds only 2 knots to the stall speed. The aircraft is designed for fuel-efficient long-range flight, with a range of just over . It can fly for over ten hours and up to on 52 gallons (200 liters) of fuel.Rutan Long-EZ Owners Manual, Second Edition - October 1983 Equipped with a rear-seat fuel tank, a Long-EZ flew for 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) in December 1979, still, the record for aircraft weighing less than 1000 kg. The

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

sits in a semi-reclined seat and controls the Long-EZ using a

side-stick __NOTOC__ A side-stick or sidestick controller is an aircraft control stick that is located on the side console of the pilot, usually on the righthand side, or outboard on a two-seat flightdeck. Typically this is found in aircraft that are equip ...

controller situated on the right-hand console. In addition to having an airbrake on the underside, the

twin tail A twin tail is a specific type of vertical stabilizer arrangement found on the empennage of some aircraft. Two vertical stabilizers—often smaller on their own than a single conventional tail would be—are mounted at the outside of the aircra ...

's wing-tip

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

s can be deflected outwards to act as auxiliary airbrakes. In 1996 Burt Rutan awarded TERF Inc. the job of publishing the plans for the Long-EZ and other of his aircraft under The Rutan Aircraft Factory CD ROM Encyclopedia to further assist new builders and maintenance for existing builders. Some components for the design are supplied by

Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co. is an American producer of aircraft parts and services including plans for homebuilt aircraft. History Aircraft Spruce Co. was founded in 1965 by Bob and Flo Irwin as a follow-on to founding Fullerton Air Parts ...

In 1997, Dick Rutan and Mike Melvill flew in convoy around the world in two Rutan Long-EZ aircraft that they had built. This "around the world in 80 nights" flight was called The Spirit of EAA Friendship World Tour, and some legs of it lasted for over 14 hours.

Variants

; E-Racer : An extensively modified redesign using Long-EZ wings with a fuselage modified for side-by-side seating, retractable landing gear, and larger automotive engine conversion powerplants. ;

EZ-rocket The XCOR EZ-Rocket was a test platform for the XCOR XR-4A3 rocket propulsion system. The airplane was a modified Rutan Long-EZ, with the propeller replaced by first one, then later a pair of pressure-fed regeneratively cooled liquid-fueled rock ...

: XCOR Aerospace modified a Long-EZ and replaced the engine with twin liquid-fueled rocket engines to form a flight test vehicle called the

, which was used as a proof-of-concept demonstrator. Initially, a follow-on version called the "Mark-1 X-Racer, was going to be developed for the

Rocket Racing League The Rocket Racing League was a racing league that planned to use rocket-powered aircraft to race a closed-circuit air racetrack. Founded in 2005, the league made its first public flights in 2010 and was working to begin regular racing seasons. ...

, but the

Velocity SE The Velocity Model 173 SE (Standard Elite) is an entry level canard pusher aircraft from Velocity Aircraft.Products Overview
, '' XCOR Aerospace'', undated, accessed 2010-12-27. ''"Twin 400 lb-thrust XR-4A3 engines aboard the EZ-Rocket"'' (with in-flight photograph) ... ''"Another engine that we have developed in parallel is the XR-4K14, ... a 1,500 lb thrust regeneratively cooled LOX and pump-fed kerosene system ... used as the Rocket Racer aircraft's main engine."''XCOR X-Racer
by Nancy Atkinson, ''

Universe Today Universe Today (U.T.) is a popular North American-based non-commercial space and astronomy news website. The domain was registered on December 30, 1998, and the website went live in March 1999, founded by Canadian Fraser Cain. The ''Universe Today ...

'', 2009-08-06, accessed 2010-04-26. ;Twin EZ :Ivan Shaw built a Long-EZ and then converted it into a "Twin-EZ", an aircraft with twin wing-mounted Norton

Wankel engine The Wankel engine (, ) is a type of internal combustion engine using an Eccentric (mechanism), eccentric rotary combustion engine, rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. It was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, and desi ...

s (precursors to the MidWest AE series). Shaw, a Yorkshireman, later designed the Europa XS kitplane. ;Long ESA :A 258 hp electric engine conversion. On 19 July 2012, pilot

Chip Yates Chip Yates (born February 11, 1971 as William Morrison Yates III) is an American inventor and electrical vehicle pioneer best known for risky record-setting feats in electric vehicles of his own design. He designed and built the record-breaking S ...

achieved 202.6 mph in level flight, making the aircraft the fastest man carrying electric powered aircraft. ;Berkez or Berk-EZ: Heavily modified Long-EZ with

Berkut 360 The Berkut 360 is a tandem-seating, two-seat homebuilt canard aircraft with pusher configuration and retractable landing gear, built primarily of carbon fiber and fiberglass. The Berkut 360 is featured in the 2010 movie ''Kill Speed'' (''Fast ...

components. ;Wright Stagger-EZ Stagger EZ

:A Steve Wright three-seater design, using standard Long-EZ wings but with a dihedral canard and a rounder, more capacious fuselage. The pilot seat is standard Long-EZ, the co-pilot seat is offset to the right and 13" rearward, and behind the pilot seat is a third seat for a passenger. The co-pilot has a control stick but no rudder pedals. Only one Stagger-EZ was built. ;Long-distance EZ (G-WILY) :A standard Long-EZ modified by Bill Allen for long distance, with two wing droptanks for extra luggage and a large additional fuel tank in place of a passenger seat. Bill Allen also installed a Wilksch WAM diesel engine in one Long-EZ that he had built. ;Borealis PDE-powered aircraft

:Powered by a pulse detonation engine. The project was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc.

Specifications

Accidents and incidents

*On February 28, 1990, Wallace Reid Jr. died after his Long-EZ crashed into the sea off Santa Monica after entering heavy fog. *Singer-songwriter and actor

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...

died when his Long-EZ crashed on October 12, 1997, just off the coast at

Pacific Grove, California Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, in the United States. The population at the 2020 census was 15,090. Pacific Grove is located between Point Pinos and Monterey. Pacific Grove has numerous Victorian-era houses, so ...

. The NTSB believes that he inadvertently pushed on his right rudder pedal while twisting to the left in his seat as he struggled to operate the fuel selector valve, which on his aircraft had been moved by a previous owner to a position where it could more easily be reached from the passenger seat. Contributing factors in the Denver crash were other pilot errors, a design that led to an overly optimistic pre-flight fuel-check estimate, a known defective fuel valve that was very hard to turn, and non-standard placement of the fuel selector valve by the plane's builder, at variance with Burt Rutan's specifications. Denver was aware of the relocated valve prior to take off and had previously flown the aircraft only for approximately thirty minutes in an orientation flight the day before the accident, although he was an experienced pilot. The NTSB cited Denver's unfamiliarity with the aircraft and his failure to have the aircraft refueled as causal factors in the accident. The aerodynamics of this unusual aircraft did not play a role in Denver's crash. *On December 20, 1997, the author James Gleick crash-landed his Long-EZ at

Greenwood Lake Airport Greenwood Lake Airport is a public use airport located one nautical mile (2 km) east of the central business district of West Milford, in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. The airport is owned by New Jersey Department of Tr ...

in West Milford, New Jersey. The pilot was on final approach when the engine lost power and landed short of the runway against rising terrain. Probable causes of this accident were deemed to be terrain conditions and the failure of the pilot to use carburetor heat, which resulted in carburetor ice. The pilot was seriously injured and the passenger, his young son, was killed.David Diamond: "James Gleick's Survival Lessons", Wired, 7.08, August, 1999
/ref>

References

External links