Hi Tony,
---From memory, the flight test procedure is a fairly straightforward business.
It is obviously much easier if you have a suitably experienced test pilot to
do this for you, who knows what is required of the Europa.
Once you, your inspector and the test pilot are satisfied that the aircraft
is ready to fly there are usually a number of ground runs conducted to take
the aircraft up to flying speed and explore the handling characteristics. In
our case Mike Dolphin only made about three ground runs before taking to the
air.
The first flight is always conducted with the pilot only in the aircraft for
obvious reasons.
He was airborne for about 25 minutes during which he checked out the general
handling and stall characteristics.
After that we (Mike and me) conducted further airborne tests and recorded
the aircrafts handling characteristics - climb rates (all up weight), stall
speeds, aircraft stability (ie: hands off) engine parameters etc. This took
a total of about two hours.
Additionally the stall strips have to be set up and there are usually quite
a few minor snags to rectify.
Once we were satisfied the aircraft was flying happily, we flew off a
further two hours as a single sortie (I believe this is mandatory).
The whole process took us two weekends (mainly due to bad weather) but could
easily be done in a couple of days.
In total we flew off just over 5 hours which I believe is the minimum
required. The paperwork was duly completed and sent off to the PFA and we
received our Permit To Fly within 14 days (it would have been seven but
Francis Donaldson was away on holiday.
It was a very enjoyable and memorable process, especially when Mike handed
me the controls of my aircraft for the first time.
If you need any more info, please dont hesitate to get back to me and I will
email our phone number.
Where do you intend to conduct the test flying?
Carl Pattinson
G-LABS
PS: Strange coincidence, but my test pilot Mike Dolphin has just posted an
advert to sell his Europa on this list. If you dont have a suitable test
pilot available, you might ask him if he would do the honours. He is very
experienced and has done at least 6 Europa flight tests that I know of . I
cant reccommend and thank him highly enough. Thanks Mike.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Bale" <tony.bale@virgin.net>
Subject: Europa-List: 2004 Performance
>
> Folks,
> Just a quick note, we rang the factory last Monday for some
bits, posted a cheque the same day, received said bits Thursday, pretty good
I thought - role on credit card facilities !!
>
> Getting nervous as we are nearly ready to send off paperwork to PFA for
test flight permit - what is the normal sequence of events for the test
process, is their a set number of procedures / hours ? can anyone enlighten
me please ?
>
> Regards
>
> Tony
>
>
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