NX666DV is the second Long EZ I’ve built from plans. The first one, SPEEDRACER flew me around for 1,500 hours over 10 years and put 18 air racing trophies on my wall. I built it in 23 months in 2,500 hours while I was working full time.
Then I got the racing bug and spent about 600 more hours making it go fast. With a hopped-up angle valve Lycoming O-290 D2 it would average over 230 mph at Shirl Dickey’s R.A.C.E. races on the 120 mile triangles. I decided I wanted to do something different, sold it and built a Kingfisher amphibious flying boat over four years. By the time I finished it I was really missing my LongEZ.
On the day of the Kingfisher’s first flight I started building my present one. That took four years. I flew it in white primer for six years before I found the time to paint (46 separate parts – I counted) it. I used NAPA single stage Ryder Yellow ProBase. The lime green is a vinyl wrap so I can pull it off to change colors or to have an all-yellow airplane. I did all the aero speed mods I’d done on SPEEDRACER during the build. The engine is a parallel-valve O-360 A2D. It had 129 hours total time when purchased. I disassembled it and sent all the parts out to make it better than new. The cylinders went to Seth at Performance Aircraft Powerplants for porting, triple-bevel valve grind (worth 5 HP per cylinder) and 10:1 Lycon pistons. Aircraft Specialties balanced the crankshaft and rods and furnished a hot rod camshaft. With an Ellison throttle body and dual Lightspeed electronic ignitions it puts out around 215 hp. I can easily cruise at 200 knots but seldom do. I prefer a 200-mph economy cruise burning 5.4 gph (above 14,000′).
The panel contains Microair radios, Dynon, mini iPad, and Trutrack autopilot. It has a smoke system with the smoke oil tank in a wing. It’s lots of fun to follow a Turbo Cirrus off the runway, catch up, and pass them with a 30-knot speed advantage (under 1,000 pounds, 215 HP – do the math). They never wave back.
—Bob Holliston, Oregon
Cool, looking good. I went with motorcycles, just about done with a cam install today, finish tomorrow. much needed low-end torque on my 2019 tri-glide.