> > John Cliff wrote
> > Every monowheel pilot I know is frightened of their machine! not
really
a
> > good idea for a 'hobby' plane.
> I never did ! (it was another guy, I'm just the messenger) :-)
> John
I'm very sorry John for the confusion. A lot of messages on this forum
really wind me up, but I control myself. Unfortunately I couldn't
contain
myself over this message.
For anybody interested I have been into 2 very unusual strips over the
last
two days.
The first was a microlight strip called Stoke. It is 600 metres long
with a
fairly good sideways curve along its length. It has a hanger at one end
of
the runway. A bank along the whole eastern side. A railway line along
the
whole western side and very tall electricity pylons immediately the
other
side of the railway, which curves around onto the approach path. Oh, and
it's very bumpy.
The second was relatively very good at Cross in Hand. This is again a
long
600 metres with the threshold at the end of a long sloping forest. The
first
part of the runway is uphill and sensibly unusable. The rest of the
strip is
markedly downhill and also has a significant sideways slope. Again it is
very rough and the far end of the runway had a short vertical drop.
Does operating into these kind of fields (and I have been in to another
2
like that in the past month) sound like I am frightened of the monowheel
Europa. I will leave you to judge.
I must add that I do not make it a habit of using these kinds of strips,
it
is just the way things have panned out recently. I am eqally happy
flying
into big airfields in the middle of class D airspace, witness the recent
trip that I made solo down to Croatia, running a day behind the rest of
the
pack due to work commitments.
I started flying the monowheel Europa with just 70 hours total in my
logbook, but instead of being stupid, I got some training with Martin
Stoner, and even then worked slowly up the experience ladder (working
hand
in hand with my daughter Sarah who also owns the aircraft and had
identical
log book experience at the beginning). We now have 670 hours on the
aircraft, nearly 500 of which are mine due to the difference in time
available and we both absolutely love it. Sarah, even with her
comparatively
fewer hours has taken the aircraft from the UK, down to the south of
France
and back up the west coast on a week long holiday.
Whatever it is you fly, monowheel, conventional or tri-gear, for
goodness
sake get on and enjoy flying it (or building it).
Dave Watts G-BXDY
|