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Type of aircraft From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cozy Mark IV is a 4-seat, single engine, homebuilt light aircraft designed by Nat Puffer, with parts and plans supplied by Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co. The aircraft is built from plans using basic raw materials. It is not a kit aircraft, though many small parts are available prefabricated. The Cozy is similar in design and construction to the 2-seat Rutan Long-EZ, from which it is derived,[2][3] with approval from Burt Rutan.
Cozy MK IV | |
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Cozy Mk.III | |
Role | Homebuilt aircraft |
National origin | United States |
Manufacturer | Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co |
Designer | Nat Puffer |
First flight | 1993[1] |
Introduction | 1991 |
Number built | 350 (2015)[2] |
Developed from | Rutan Long-EZ |
The Cozy Mark IV utilizes foam and fiberglass sandwich construction, with foam suited to the usage, fiberglass oriented for the stresses, and epoxy to bond them together.[3]
Nat Puffer designed the aircraft as a high speed cross-country visual flight rules (VFR) aircraft, although many builders equip their planes with instrument flight rules (IFR) capabilities.[4]
The aircraft is constructed primarily of fiberglass, foam, and epoxy. Urethane foam is used to form highly curved, hand-carved shapes such as the nose and wing tips. Blue rigid styrofoam is cut with a hot wire saw to form the wing cores. Thin PVC foam sheets are used to form bulkheads and the fuselage sides. Two types of woven fiberglass are used to provide the surface strength of the composite sandwich. RA7715 fiberglass is almost entirely unidirectional in its fiber orientation. RA7725 has an equal portion of perpendicular fiberglass strands. Epoxy systems used include EZ-Poxy, Safe-T-Poxy, MGS L285 and L335, and West Systems. The builder does not need pre-fabricated items to finish the aircraft except for the landing gear bow and nose gear strut which require forms and an oven for post curing, but several suppliers exist for these parts.[citation needed]
The recommended engine is the 180 hp (134 kW) Lycoming O-360, but a variety of powerplants from 160 to 220 hp (119 to 164 kW) have been used. One installation uses two Suzuki 1600 automobile engines driving two concentric contrarotating propellers.[3][2]
Data from [5]
General characteristics
Performance