_____________________________________________________________________
History: This plans-built homebuilt project began with the purchase of a project in 1981 from the estate of Mr. Bill Crinich, an IBM engineer, Niwot Colorado. Wings, center section spar, canard / ailerons and unattached winglets and various parts, including nose gear casting, nose strut, landing gear core, and a O-SMOH Continental C-85-12F engine (later sold) were included with project.
All aspects of the project were inspected by several composite / glass experts as well as friend and FAA inspector Mr. Barry Chrysler. (Barry, now deceased, was one of only 57 people to hold all FAA ratings, and gave A&P graduates the practical part of their final exam). Overall quality of lay-ups, construction, weight and condition of the critical flying surfaces, wing attachment assemblies and all steel or aluminum-to-glass hard points were all determined to be excellent in quality and workmanship, and all glass work was precise, with good resin to glass ratio, and overall, the condition of the project work completed by Mr. Crinich was determined to be excellent. After confirming availability of support from Rutan Aircraft Factory, and confirming the chemical and mechanical compatibility of the original Rutan epoxy system with the subsequently used Safe-T-Poxy system, the project was purchased late in 1981 and subsequent construction began in Jan. of ‘82. Mr. Crinich’s original serial number was retired and a new serial number was assigned to the project for RAF’s records.
About the builder, Steve Franseen: I am an Industrial Designer and Mechanical Engineer and during the years of construction and completion of this project, (Dec. 1981 through Nov. 1987) I was employed by a Denver-based international dental manufacturing Company. At that time I was (and remain) heavily involved in 3D Computer Aided Design, (CAD). The availability of 3D CAD modeling and in a few cases CAM played a significant role in some of present unique shape and sweep of the plane as well as hundreds of parts and system components. CAD was used for the design of many of the systems, non-flying surface templates and mechanisms.
At the dental company I served as Manager of Engineering and in the course of that I became good friends with senior tool and die makers, some of which took a participative interest in the construction of 86EZ. One machinist in particular, a Mr. Glenn Clark (now retired) machined many of the components, small parts and assemblies of the plane in his well-equipped home based machine shop over those years, in accordance with my engineering drawings.
As will be appreciated from the descriptions to follow, the building of this aircraft was undertaken with emphasis on accurate metallurgy, materials, and precision. Access to CNC machining, heat-treating and normalizing facilities, metal finishing, tumbling and deburring, heavy machine tools, CAD, and industrial inspection tools all contributed to the excellent, highly engineered airplane that has resulted. This airplane was built with the attitude that with care, attention to fine detail, and comprehensive maintenance, there is no reason that the basic airframe of 86EZ should not be flying many decades into the future, just like the Bonanzas and Cessna 140’s manufactured 55 or 60 years ago are still flying.
One other major influence on the design of 86EZ was from 2 close friends, Mike Guthrie and Ben Duarte, who had both guilt very fine Vari Ezes. These guys, both engineers had many hundreds of hours on their planes as the completion of 86EZ was undertaken. They flew their planes very aggressively and had many many pieces of practical real world advice related to the operations of their aircraft that were incorporated into the overall approach to 86EZ.
General Philosophy of design and construction: Rather than build a highly modified racer, with “passing fad” - type features, the approach taken with 86EZ was to avoid anything that reduced dependability, safety and access for maintenance and inspection. As an example of this, forged Venolia automotive racing pistons and cylinder-saving Total Seal™ rings are used, but not as it is normally done: A special set of pistons was ordered that produce a compression ratio of only 8 : 1, (7 : 1 is standard for the Continental O-200) This avoided the intensity of the all too typical 9.5:1 compression ratio used with the O-200 by many for racing. 9.5 : 1 is hard on Continental cylinders designed in the ‘40’s.
In some ways 86EZ is “plain vanilla and by the plans” but in many other ways it is not. Many decisions were made during the construction of this aircraft that were based on safety, durability, dependability, precision, accessibility for maintenance, corrosion resistance, modifications for improved wear and lubrication, low hysterisis of the controls, long range and comfort for pilot and passenger. Because of this effort, non-stop flights such as from Denver to Chicago Meigs, and San Diego to Denver are easily accomplished, typical missions flown in 86EZ. It is an experimental airplane that you can relax in, even coming in to Denver over the Rockies non-stop from the West coast. The airframe has proven to be virtually trouble and annoyance free for 1200+ hrs.