where I start as a builder...

I like building as much (and maybe more) than flying. I've worked in wood (helping with EAA's Bleriot reproduction), in tube (overhauling and recovering my 1946 PA-12) and in aluminum (the BD-4 and RV-6a). In February 2016 I took a SportAir workshop on composites, and that gave me the confidence to consider a composite. The daily discoveries from working in composites should make the build all the more enjoyable.

The Cozy is also going to be different in that it is plans built. All of the more popular amateur built aircraft are kits; most of the work is in assembling supplied parts, and the sub-assemblies become an airplane. With the Cozy, you build the parts. If it comes out wrong, you figure out what went wrong, trash the first effort and work to build it better. I figure I'm going to end up with 1000 lbs. of airplane, 1000 lbs. of scrap.

My building and flying experience was in Hartford Connecticut, coached by expert aircraft mechanics working at Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Kaman, et c. They wanted to keep me safe, and that started with safe from my lack of experience. I learned standards of work more than anything else:
- Check against plan dimensions before, during and after
- A hole is a precision cut
- Every rivet is a 4 step process
- The only approved shortcut is the published procedure, because that way you don't do it over
- Every aircraft regulation was written in blood
- Et cetera.

The biggest challenge will be doing this build without the support of the close circle I have relied on in the past. I think I'm starting to build that network here in Florida, and I'll work on the networking during the build.

I bought and experimented with fiberglass, foam, epoxy and fillers. I'm like most new workers in composites - wow, how amazingly strong a good layup can be! The experiment pieces are below - the wing section, gear leg fairing and "T" section were done at the Sport Air workshop. The 3-ply load-bearing tablet was done per instructions in the Cozy plans. I used the "poor man's pre-preg" of wetting out the weave between sheets of 4 mil plastic sheeting.

I am using two types of epoxy - Aeropoxy for load-bearing laminations and West Systems for the fill-and-sand work (500 hours of a typical Cozy project). {Later edit - I ended up building a library of different epoxies, with toughened, fuel proof, super clear, et al.)