Hello to Europa fans from the White House Hotel!
I'm here almost alone apart from hotel people laying tables. The formal
presentations have finished for the afternoon. The great majority of
attenders* have disappeared, in the interval before dinner, to have a look
at Jon Tye's Europa, now parked at Staverton Airfield.
Customer #1's machine is the first customer-built Europa to fly in to a
Europa Club seminar.
We learned in Francis Donaldson's presentation earlier that Jon's machine
is the lightest Europa so far bar none at an empty weight of 729 lbs. The
heaviest customer-built one to date is 806 lbs, and the mean is 780 lbs. At
that mean empty weight, the payload will be 520 lbs. For those of you into
flash panel fits, you should take note that Jon's panel is only 18 lbs. For
comparison, Graham Singleton says theirs is 35 lbs. Jon says his secret to
low weight is to follow the factory instructions, trim off all surplus,
don't add extra stuff, and sand _almost_ down to the glass when profiling.
Andy Draper from the factory told us there are now 11 Europas flying: UK,
6; South Africa, 1; Austria, 1; Germany, 2; Ireland, 1.
cheers
Rowland
(* an attender is one who attends; an attendee has attention done to him -
compare with payer, payee .....)
... that's Rowland with a 'w' ...
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