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| The header from the last edition of the Team-EZ website |
Although the Long-EZ was never intended as an aerobatic plane, it
does have limited aerobatic capabilities. It can perform a loop and an aileron roll, which can be combined into a series of
maneuvers, including 8-point rolls, barrel rolls, Cuban Eights, and others. Long-EZ N13YV is unusual in that it was capable
of performing sustained inverted flight, limited only by the lack of a full inverted fuel and oil system.
I must point out that although the Long-EZ can do aerobatics, it is not good at them. I
finally quit flying airshows due to what I felt was a lack of an adequate safety margin to recover from maneuvers gone
wrong. I rarely fly aerobatics any more in the Long-EZ, and I would recommend that anyone contemplating aerobatics in
their canard aircraft receive professional aerobatic instruction in a conventional aircraft before trying any manevers in
their canard.
I created Team-EZ, Inc. as an airshow business, with a primary goal
of sustaining iteslf, and a secondary goal of growing it to a 3-plane formation team. I tried to bring a regimented, business
approach to my airshow business, and it was reasonably successful. Although I never earned a living wage from Team-EZ, it
paid for significant upgrades to the plane, gave me invaluable business experience, and let me enjoy the traveling and people
that airshows across North America provided.
Below is a graphic representation of my routine when I stopped flying
airshows in 1999. All maneuvers where my energy vector started in the upward direction were started at about 50', whereas
maneuvers that had the energy vector headed down at the end were finished at 200' AGL.
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| Routine for my last performance October 1999 |
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| Not often anyone gets to fly this close to the Blue Angels |
There are lots of aspects of airshows that I miss: the great people,
very few restrictions on the flying during the show, the friendly people in the towns where the shows were held, the good
friends I made amongst the performers and volunteers, and chance to share my love of aviation with a new generation of kids.
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| Kay Staggs, my best friend and travelling companion |
I was also fortunate to be supported by an incredibly understanding
wife, Kay, who travelled with me to many shows and acted as my announcer, doing a better job than most of the "professionals".
Some interesting statistics from the 8 airshow seasons in which I performed in the Long-EZ:
- 130 performances
- 63 different shows
- 15 different states
- 5 Canadian provinces
- Total attendance of over 2.5 million spectators
In order to fly shows, the only changes I made to the plane were the
installation of a supplementation fiberglass tank in the rear seat to hold smoke oil, plus the plumbing to the exhast, as
well as installing brackets and wiring for smoke grenades at the wingtips.
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| Signing autographs - the best part of the job |
Most maneuvers were intended to be flown at 3 g's or less, although
I exceeded this on occasion.
One last interesting observation: I figure I signed somewhere over
10,000 autographs in 8 years, and most of those were for young kids. If just 1% of them were inspired to pursue a career or
passion for aviation, then my effort will have been worthwhile. Seeing the kids faces at the crowd ropes after my performances
was invariably the highlight of any show.
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