Just about everyone at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
2012 was doing Dennis Butler of Houston, Texas, a
disservice by referring to his Cozy III (more precisely a IIIP) as an "enlarged Cozy III," even though
that's what he calls it himself.
Most people don't take into consideration that
when you grow an airplane from a two-place to a
three-place-plus and enlarge it 10 percent overall,
what you get is a totally new airplane; very little
from the original design transfers directly. So, what
we should be crediting Dennis with is not building
a modified Cozy, but rather creating his own design
Photography courtesy Dennis Butler
within the Cozy format. This is far from being as
easy as it first appears.
Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Dennis,
EAA 300656, was into technology and building early
in his life, and when he graduated from Boston Technical High School, he went directly into the Air Force.
"When I got out of the Air Force, I went to University of Massachusetts in Boston and got a degree
in physics," he said. "Then I went on to the University of California and got a Ph.D. in astronomy
and astrophysics."
EAA Experimenter
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