• THE PLANES
• Why do they park nose down?                                 The pilot actually balances the engine, so without the pilot the plane would tip over backwards.
• I've heard they don't stall?                                   NASA tested the Long EZ for days and couldn't get them to stall or spin.

• They are made like a surfboard, are they as strong as metal planes?                                                      Stronger, lighter and as a result faster.  The fact they also float was probably not even visualized when Burt designed the first one.
• When you say fast, how fast?                           Depends on which plane - the bigger engined Varieze, Long EZ, Cozys and Velocities can cruise close to 200 mph.   The smaller engined ones will cruise at close to 170 mph if modernized.

The Capabilities

Range - the Virtually all Long EZs, Cozy, Cozy IVs and some Velocities will cover 1000nm at fairly high cruise speeds.  The Varieze, which has half the tank size will have about 650nm range.

Altitude - bigger engined ones will reach into the 20,000' range (one friend has the altitude record of over 35,000')

Fuel Consumption - The Varieze under 5gph, The Long EZ from 6.5 to 8 gph, the Cozy III usually 8 gph, the Cozy IV between 8 and 10 gph. The Velocity 8 gph on up depending on horsepower.

Baggage:  There are spaces around the planes for soft bags, and you can add removable baggage pods for the long trips that only knock top speed down 1% or so.

How can you trust an experimental?  Well, the fleet has a very good record of high flight times - many over 3000 hours of flight with the very tried and true aircraft engines, the O-200-A you find in the old Cessna 150 is the stock engine in the Varieze.  The O-235 you find in a Piper Tomahawk was the stock Long EZ engine and the new engine of choice for the Varieze.  The O-320, said to be the most common aircraft engine in the world, found in Cessna 172, is the engine of choice for the Long EZ now.  The bigger 4 seat planes often rely on the O-360 which is found in the Cessna 182, a very common engine indeed. 

A few people are pioneering with auto engines.  They tend to take longer to build, longer to test fly and the value of their planes tends to be lower when they come to sell.