Congratulations to the owners of these Europa aircraft. They are quite
obviously created from totally different materials from mine ! I'm certainly
jealous.
No way could my aircraft ever aspire to anywhere close to any of the figures
I occasionally see touted around on this email list.
As someone who has always been a little disappointed in the actual
performance
(as against advertised performance) of my aircraft, I'm always anxious to
know how on earth these spectacular figures are achieved.
60 - 85% power has always returned GPS ground speeds in the 100 - 120 kt
range, and I'm fairly convinced that with just 80 horse power from the 912,
it's
power, not aerodynamic efficiency that's the primary limiting factor. After
much
deliberation, I've decided that the only thing which will ever give me more
than
10 knots extra, is a much more powerful engine.
Sometimes, it's been an effort to hold just 100 mph G.S. in the cruise,
against
a strong headwind. At 22% cruise, I'd be looking for a suitable field !!
A 115hp Europa (VP prop) which has flown with me on occasion doesn't
appear to fly significantly faster. (10 knots max ??)
The RV-6 uses more than double the power to return it's (impressive!) near
200mph cruise.
If I could return 130 knots on 100% power at 23 litres an hour/3000 feet,
I'd feel
privileged.
In fact I've never seen 10 litres/hour !! I'm always in the 13 - 17 litre/hr
range.
And as someone who has carried out a number of longer trips, I've never
dared
fly more than 400nm on my larger than average 84 litre fuel tank. (circa 4
hours)
My figures have always been quite close to a CAREFUL reading of the original
flight
report produced by Pete Clark, on G-YURO. (circa 4 knots)
Alan
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