Today a friend and fellow builder Tim L. (now flyer) took a trip down my way in his freshly minted Cozy IV aircraft. Being in the building process of the same aircraft I was ecstatic in getting the opportunity to ride in one since the opportunity has been rare since I started building.

Tim flew down from the Akron area into a small airport about 25 minutes from my house (KLHQ) in Lancaster. This is actually the airport I got my private pilot license at many years back. I don’t visit it often except for the occasional EAA chapter meeting that I manage to make it to about once a year. The airport has torn down some of the old style T-Hangars and replaced them with some nice new ones and is really turning into a pretty nice little FBO.

The intent of the trip today was to get me a little stick time, which is always inspiring, and to take a trip down to the Cincinnati area and visit Sporty’s Pilot Shop. The bonus, I found out, is that Sporty’s serves up free hot dogs and brats on Saturdays for pilots who fly in, so you don’t even have to buy the $200 hamburger when you get there!!!

The weather was hazy with a thin cirrus layer above 20,000 ft and probably 15 miles visibility. Temps ran about 50 degrees F on the ground. Not too bad for a late December day here in Ohio! When I arrived, Tim had already landed (dang!) and was re-ballasting the aircraft. Typically ballast is required in a Cozy when flying single pilot to keep CGs in range, so Tim was removing ballast for he and I to make the flight. I must admit that I smiled mightily when I pulled up and saw that gleaming new Cozy sitting on the ramp.

A bio-break and hello later and I was in the aircraft, engine running, pulling away from the FBO building with Tim giving me a 20 second dissertation on how to taxi a Cozy. Before I knew it Tim asked “Do you want to taxi it?”
There was nothing else to say but, “Heck Yeah!!!” Cozy aircraft taxi using differential braking (a la the SR-20 and SR-22 and most newer composite aircraft). Unlike Cessnas where you have direct control of the front tire, you must apply the brakes to one main or the other to get the Cozy to turn. I learned to fly in Cessnas and I wondered how difficult it would be to learn. I found out it was pretty intuitive. Little taps on the brakes keep you gently going in whatever direction you desire. The only issue I had was applying equal pressure to both brakes always when coming to a full-stop. I had a tendency at first to veer a bit in one direction, but after taxiing for a bit I got the hang of it.

At the approach end holding short, Tim let me perform the run-up of his Lycoming IO-360 powered bird, quickly running me through the checklists. He has dual Dynon EFIS displays and they clearly show all needed engine information in a neat package. In normal ops one is kept as a PFD (primary flight display) and the other is engine information.

Following the run-up, Tim allowed me to Taxi the aircraft onto the runway and while he performed the normal co-pilot duties (power up, flaps up, radio calls :-) I got in my first cozy take-off. THANKS TIM!!!!! I tried to remember the good advice given to me by past flight instructors, “Wait for the airspeed, pull back gently and let it fly easily away from the ground.” That advice proved to be excellent in the Cozy. The nose-bob experienced by many first time flyers of Cozys didn’t happen for me. Tim brought up the gear and said, “Canard on the horizon, climb out at 110 to 120Kts” and I dutifully performed, experiencing a climb rate at about 1010 to 1100 ft / minute with Tim and I running the front seat at about 420lbs. I didn’t check fuel on board, but it was enough to make a roundtrip flight between Lancaster to Cincinnati (1.6hrs) and Lancaster to Akron (.7hrs) and some I’m sure. I’ll guess ½ to ¾ full in each tank.

Once airborne and level at 4500 (4Mins), we leveled off, pulled the power back to 65% and pulled the mixture to lean of peak about 35degrees. We saw TAS at about 160Kts and fuel burn in the 7 to 7.3Gph range. Not bad. That’s about 26Mpg in auto terms!!!

The flight was smooth and the aircraft performed flawlessly despite my inexperienced hand at the controls. Getting used to an EFIS is interesting when you have learned a T-Scan with the old style steam gauges. It took me about an hour before I was comfortable with the information in front of me and I figure it would be probably 10 hours before I’d be willing to take it into IFR conditions. The display was bright and the amount of information on them is fantastic. You can cycle through many displays and when you have more than one you can leave one on an HSI and the other on the PFD. Gotta like that.

On the approach to Sportys, Tim allowed me to work the pattern, talking me through the airspeeds and timing. He is very methodical in the aircraft, which I like, and he took the aircraft only on short final. The flight was just short of 40 mins. Given that my drive would be at least 2.5 hours… well, that is great!

Sporty’s has a nice little FBO there and since the brats were free, things couldn’t have been better. The airport is very nice, and there was a ton of GA traffic as you might expect of an airfield that contains the largest online seller of pilot stuffs. Tim’s aircraft gathered quite a crowd right away and he beamed like the proud father of a new son when explaining about the aircraft to folks who came by to visit. He got everything from, “Is the nose gear broken” to “You built that in your garage!!!! Honey come here!!!” (potential new builder :-)