Greetings All,
I=B9ve just returned to home base from a week in Florida where last weekend,
I
attended
the Europa Workshop. I had a blast! The weather was not cooperative with
temps in
the low 90sF, humidity in the 80s and convection thunderstorms daily, but
none of that
seemed to dampen enthusiasm.
There were four participants, including myself but excluding my wife.
Jimmy Thursby gave the lectures. They were clear, concise and entertaining
.
To my critical
eye (I am a Professor), he did an excellent job and even my wife admits to
staying awake
and learning about aircraft materials.
Before starting in on the chocks, we had a close look at 914EA and 912EA, a
monowheel
turbo with a feathering prop and a trigear 912 respectively and Jimmy and
John Hurst
exhausted all our questions.
One the second day, we took a short road trip to Flight Crafters, a nearby
builder=B9s assistance
center (more on Flight Crafters later).
My ride in 914EA was everything I had hoped for. The aircraft met my
expectations completely.
Had a lot of fun too, did some rolls and some zero g wingovers. A square
course speed run
produced an unexpected result in the GPS groundspeed =AD at about 3000 MSL an
d
about 80%
power, we averaged 178 mph =AD yes I was there to see it!
I learned many interesting factoids that have not been widely circulated,
among them that
only the non US destination kits use the SP Systems Ampreg20, in the US, th
e
kits are supplied
with Aeropoxy which happens to be minimally noxious to my nose.
Another perhaps obvious factoid is that, based on the construction manual,
English is
still the common language which divides the UK and the US.
On to FlightCrafters. Based on my minimal experience with aircraft
construction, I took
my Phase 1 kit (preskinned control surfaces, i.e., the tail kit) over to
FlightCrafters. Russell LePre=B9
and Bob Berube are both extremely well versed in Europa construction. Many
of you may recall
that Bob initiated and ran Europa=B9s American operations for several years
before stepping down.
Their shop is air-conditioned and well equipped and had 7-8 other Europas i
n
various stages
of construction. In 3.5 days, with Russell looking over my shoulder and
translating the manual
for me, I completed all the closeouts, and mounted all the hardware and
hinges thus completing
phase one with some assurance that I had done it properly. I=B9d have to
guess that alone in
my garage, this work would have taken three weeks with a fair bit of head
scratching.
I therefore highly recommend FlightCrafters to novice builders like me.
Their website is
www.flightcrafters.com, or better yet, call them at 813-655-6411.
Ira
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