Hi,
Yes it was on the 10th of Aug. and it was conducted at Vandenburg
Airport just outside Tampa Fla. The flight was flown by our local Europa
test pilot Lee Omernik. The empty weight with electric NSI prop was
898#. Of course that includes my extra's such as the 40A alternator at
9# and my rudder trim at 1#. I'm now flying it with the Warp ground
adjustable prop set a 18 degrees. This reduced the GW to 886#. There is
a 12# penalty with the electric prop. It will be reinstalled after I fly
off my 40 hours. I don't want to mess up expensive blades while I'm
getting used to the Mono-Wheel. It looks as though I will increase my
blades to 19 degrees as I can over rev the engine in flight. With my
cooling mod's for oil and water, I'm running cool on the water (170
degrees) and oil (at 205 to 210 degrees). I think I will try closing up
the air inlet a bit later as I get "in the groove" flying the Europa.
The OAT runs around 88 to 90 degrees on the ground. I have not had any
temp problems on the ground. I've taxied it for 20 to 25 min. and have
not exceeded the cht. I did have a problem on the first flight. Some
how one of the vent lines coming from the carb bowl vent was
disconnected. It did not show up until throttling back. The engine
would run rough for 20 to 30 seconds and then smooth out. We looked it
over and that was the only thing we could find. Hooking it back up and
putting a bit of safety wire around the hose, we put it back into the air
and it ran smooth. By the way it took 5 1/2 years of spare time to build
the classic / xs mod aircraft.
Jim Nelson
N15JN AMG058
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